The Aftermath
by DelVarO
Summary: Sequel to The Prototype. After the death of Kakuzawa, life in the Maple Inn continues, ignoring the changes that go through the world but soon enough, the past catches up to Alex and it might destroy the stability he achieved in his life. Review! :D
1. Beginnings

**A/N: Hell to the yeah! I'm back with a brand new story which happens to be a sequel to one of the best works i have (which im very proud of by the way). The summary sucked though. Now, this chapter is WAY shorter that my chapter are usually but that can be explained. It wrote this chaoter in a whim. I got an idea and proceeded to write it and things evolved from there and i had things added as i wrote. Unfortunately, it wasnt enough for a long chapter but still, its a chapter! and the first chapter are usually short anyway, as was evident by the first chapter of The Prototype. Anyway, i will attempt to make the next chapter longer than this, and provide more amounts of fun :D**

**So, without further distractions, enjoy the brand new chapter of this brand new story!**

* * *

><p>Aizawa Shiro flew through the air and hit the wall in an extremely painful manner, groaning as he landed. He didn't have any time to catch his breath either, because he immediately felt an extraordinary pressure clamp around his neck and lift him off the ground to pin him in midair. Through wide, shocked eyes, he saw his assailant calmly walk through the living room to stand before him, completely ignoring the destroyed front door.<p>

"Where is he?" she asked him in a far-too-calm voice than he would prefer. She looked to be around eighteen years of age and 5 feet, 5 inches tall. She had fiery red shoulder-length hair, though he could see some streaks of black through it. The most worrying feature, however, was the pair of bone-like protrusions on each side of her head.

Shiro's eyes widened further, now more of terror than surprise. This certainly explained the invisible force that had thrashed him around his own home and destroyed his front door like a cannonball flying through paper. This of course brought him back to the matter at hand: what she wanted from him.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Where is who? What the hell do you want from me? Money? Is that it?" he shouted back at her through his aching throat. The existence of the Dicloni was common knowledge by now and it was well known that many Dicloni didn't want to stay in the new Diclonius facilities the government established and preferred to stay on the street, hiding. Since this rendered them without homes, money or much food, theft and mugging by Dicloni weren't at all uncommon.

By the state of her clothes, he could easily guess that she was one of the runaways. The oversized white T-shirt she wore was dirty and worn, and the blue skirt that reached her knees had torn open in several places.

In response to his shouting, she simply gave him a sweet smile, something that only added fuel to his burning terror. "Cut the bullshit. You know who I am and who I am looking for…and I know who you are, Aizawa Shiro," she said, still smiling.

"I don't know what you're talking about…" he attempted to say, but he was slammed into the wall again with so much force that the air was knocked out of his lungs. The sharp pain in his back probably came from the loud crack he heard when he hit the wall.

"I said to cut the bullshit," she said. This time an impassive expression replaced the smile. "You know who I'm looking for."

Shiro decided to just give up and attempt to save his own life. "How the hell am I supposed to know? You don't watch the news? There hasn't been a whisper of him for almost a year now, as far as I know he might be dead!" he answered. "He might still be in that town, I can't know for sure."

"I see…" she murmured, allowing Shiro to drop to the floor in a heap.

Shiro looked at her with surprise, as he didn't expect her simply to let go of him like that. A few moments of silence passed between the pair, Shiro trying to catch his breath and the girl standing silently, a pondering expression on her face.

"Thank you for the information," she said with nod, surprising Shiro once again.

"W-what? That's it? You're just going to let me go?" he stuttered, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Let you go?" she asked, raising a delicate eyebrow as she eyed him. "I know you, Aizawa Shiro, and I know what you did," she stated, turning fully to him, causing the man to gulp.

"I know that after Alpha-One killed Kakuzawa you escaped any kind of blame by lying and saying that you never knew what they did there. Now you're living peacefully in early retirement, knowing that you lied to everyone, but…" she paused and stared at him, making him tremble a bit. "I know that you knew what was going on there, and more. I know everything. We all do," she finished. Shiro once again felt the pressure of vectors grabbing his neck and he was once again slammed into the wall.

"There are some things that you can't run away from, that you can't hide from," she said as she stared into his eyes. Shiro felt terror engulf him and a strange sensation in his left should. That sensation soon turned into agony as he felt as if thousands upon thousands of tiny knives had stabbed his shoulder. He quickly looked at it, but there was no visible damage at all. He started to scream as the pain grew.

"I cut the nerves on your arm. I believe it is very painful," she said in the same calm and quiet tone. Shiro somehow heard her above his own screams of agony. She stopped the procedure and allowed Shiro a chance to catch his breath. She silently watched him gasp, tears of pain leaking out of his eyes. "That was only the start. I will keep doing this until you die slowly and very painfully, like every other Dicloni you tortured. I will make you pay for our pain," she said when he calmed down enough to listen to her. Shiro's eyes widened even further and he started shaking and muttering 'no' repeatedly, but she ignored him.

The screams continued for the rest of the night.

* * *

><p>Amy looked out the airplane window, frowning from the fact that she couldn't see anything other the wing. She always liked flying, and in their line of work flying was a requirement to get from place to place. The thing that she liked was the view and it was the main reason why she just loathed nighttime flight; she couldn't see a damn thing! Still frowning, she turned away from the window to look at Mike, who gave an exasperated sigh.<p>

"Jeez, would you calm down? We will be getting there soon enough anyway," the ex-soldier mercenary said to his ward.

"You know how I hate flying like this and these people stare at me…" she replied in distaste while avoiding looking at said people. She wore casual civilian clothes and a blue hat on her head to conceal her horns. It didn't help much because her obviously abnormal hair color pretty much placed a neon sign over her head saying 'A Dicloni here!' and the fact that she allowed her hair to grow during the year that passed since she got out of the institute made any attempts to conceal her hair futile.

"Well, if you would've agreed to dye your hair like we told you a thousand times you wouldn't be getting these stares," Mike suggested.

"Yeah, don't blame us if you like having a pink neon light bulb as your head," Jack piped in from the seat in front of her.

"It's not pink! It's…uh, light red!" Amy protested while sending Jack a glare.

"Which basically means pink," Mike deadpanned, earning himself the by-now-famous 'Amy glare of death.'

"Will you three shut up? I'm trying to sleep here," Derrick groaned from the seat behind Mike. "Amy, you could've just avoided this mess if you dyed your hair. Jack, stop teasing her. Mike…you're an idiot," he finished. Jack snickered at the last part while Mike muttered something that sounded like 'asshole.' Even Amy smiled at that.

Her odd family had grown on her during the year and she couldn't imagine herself with someone else or being anywhere else. Hell, she even found killing to be boring without them!

"So how long until we reach Japan?" she asked Mike.

"Dunno, a couple of hours I guess," he said with a shrug.

"Four hours, actually," O'Brian corrected him. "Once there, our new and most likely permanent job will begin, so be prepared."

Amy frowned again at the mention of their new job. She didn't really know just what to feel about it. After the revelation of the Diclonius race the whole deal basically became a political shitfest. Many people wanted to give them human rights, while some – who were quickly silenced – claimed that Earth belonged to the humans and had no place for another race, let alone a race which supposedly evolved to replace humanity. After quite a while, which took many months and involved public protests and even some riots, the people reached a decision.

While people did not deny that Dicloni could be extremely dangerous and that an organized army of them could probably annihilate humanity (unless the humans used nuclear weapons, an idea that the Americans unsurprisingly suggested as a last resort), they couldn't allow the Dicloni mistreatment to continue and decided to create new institutes.

These institutes were very different from the one that Kakuzawa directed. The new institutes were much better, but were still prisons, in effect. The Dicloni inside could not leave and were not allowed to interact with the outside world, but it was still light-years better than being chained to a wall in a dark room and having cannonballs shot at them at high speeds. There were still tests conducted on the Dicloni inside but they were not of the disgusting and monstrous kind, just blood tests and the likes. The Dicloni inside were well fed, had all the medical and psychological treatment they needed, were allowed to move outside their rooms as long they didn't try to leave the compound, and according to what Amy heard, they even had TV's!She discovered the miracles of television after she got out of Kakuzawa's institute. It was quite amazing what she could see on TV, how many channels there were, and the simple ability to see what was happening in other countries. She strongly hoped that the new institute wouldn't have cable TV, because cable TV sucked on major proportions.

During the year, they worked in many places around the world. After some time the rumors that a Dicloni worked with them reached Japan and the government contacted them. Their team got this job only because they had Amy; this somehow made them experts on working with Dicloni. Amy couldn't understand how that made them experts, since they knew next to nothing about the inner workings of a Dicloni other than the general 'they have invisible arms, so try not to touch them' and 'if an invisible arm touches you consider yourself dead.'

Still, while she didn't like the fact that her kind was just being moved from one prison to a better one, she couldn't deny that she was curious. She had never interacted with other Dicloni; Kitty and Alex didn't really count unless fighting is interacting. Well, maybe they did count…Alex was pretty badass back in the institute. She fought down a blush when she remembered him half-naked and covered in blood and sweat, a state that accented his quite developed muscles, and the sheer amount of vectors he produced. His singing was still horrible though. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. She wasn't really ashamed of these thoughts. She was an adolescent girl, after all…it was just that if Mike and the others happened to find out about this she would never hear the end of it.

"So…are we going to make that stop I asked about?" she asked Mike after she cleared her throat and mind.

"Yeah, we will. I'm quite interested myself really, I wonder how they've been," he replied with a small smile.

Alex did hand their asses to them, quite quickly, too. While normal people would consider this a bad thing, the mercenary group was far from normal. It somehow made them respect him more and the fact that he helped them out by literally escorting them out of the old institute buffed that feeling of respect.

"Great. I can't wait to get to Japan," she said with a smile and turned back to the window, only to frown again at the darkness outside.

* * *

><p>A couple of young women were cornered in an alley, surrounded by five thugs, all wearing lecherous grins on their faces. They steadily made their way to the pair, who huddled against the wall. One of the thugs approached one of the girls and pulled on her sleeve but she resisted and that resulted in her shirt being torn. The thugs laughed at the display and as if the partial nudity was like blood to sharks, they all came at them at once.<p>

The girls closed their eyes, expecting to feel their disgusting hands on them any minute but after several seconds nothing happened. They waited several seconds more but still, nothing happened. The girl with the torn shirt decided to risk it and opened her eyes to slits, only to widen them in surprise.

The thug nearest to her was down on the ground, a bloodstain on the wall in front of him that was probably created when his head collided with the wall. The thug himself had a vacant and dazed look in his eyes. One of the other thugs was thrashing on the ground, mouthing obscenities as he clutched his left leg, which was contorted in a horrifyingly odd angle. The other thugs backed away from them, looks of fear splattered on their faces. What surprised her the most, though, were not the thugs, but the man who stood in front of her.

He was tall, looked to be around nineteen, had black hair, and wore the oddest clothes one could find. He had a black cape, which was gracefully billowing behind him at some unseen and unfelt wind. She did a double take on that and the thought _'who the hell wears a cape?'_ crossed her mind. Other than that, he looked to be normal. He wore black boots, black baggy cargo pants, and a black body shirt, the last of which left his rather muscled arms exposed for the two girls to see.

Before the first girl could say anything, the man turned his head to the side to look at them and gave them a massive shit-eating grin.

"Have no fear girls, the Alpha is here!" he announced and gave them a thumbs up, further advancing the opinion that he might not be mentally stable.

Before the girls could ask anything of the man who called himself 'The Alpha,' he charged. The resulting fight could be called many things. It could be called gruesome, because the caped man didn't fight to win, he fought to break. Every other second or so was a loud crack of a breaking bone, quickly followed by a scream of pain. The fight could be called graceful, because the caped man moved around the thugs like they weren't even there. It was as if these men were trying to catch water with a fishnet. He moved around them, dodging every strike, countering perfectly and all the while wearing that grin on his face. The fight could also be called quick, because it took less than a minute, and he was already standing alone, surrounded by groaning thugs, who tried crawling away using the remaining uninjured limbs they had.

He turned around to the girls, giving them a smug smile. "Do not worry my dear ladies, these barbaric thugs will bother you no more," he said as he approached them.

Slowly smiles of admiration spread on to their faces. They jumped up to their feet and ran at him, intending to thank their savior. He smiled when the girls were just a step away from him.

Then he felt a sharp pain in his ribs.

"Ow, what the hell?" he asked groggily when he opened an eye to see his dark room.

"You were talking in your sleep again. Something about capes and girls if I heard correctly," Kitty said from his side, her voice as tired as his. "I ought to kill you for such things, or maybe do something even worse. We already talked about the cape thing." she said with a yawn and cuddled closer to Alex.

Alex couldn't help but yawn as well as he moved an arm around Kitty and pulled her closer to him, enough to feel her breasts on his chest, which caused him to sport a small grin. He inhaled the smell of her hair and grinned in delight. He doubted any other girl could replace this woman beside him. Yawning again, he closed his eyes and pulled his girl even closer.

"Damn it Kitty, you just ruined the best dream _ever._"

* * *

><p>The young woman moved through the blasted front door, walking outside to the fresh night air. Looking down at herself, she scoffed when she noticed that a few droplets of blood managed to stain her clothes. The clothes were essentially her only possessions but that didn't mean that she couldn't replace them. It wasn't that fun; Shiro stopped screaming after only two hours. Eventually she just got tired and did the deed.<p>

The fact that Shiro went to early retirement and was quite rich was working to her advantage. Rich people tended to live on private property if they could afford it, and Shiro could. This meant that there wouldn't be any neighbors to hear his screams. Walking down the small path leading to the front gate of the property she gave a look to the east, seeing the beginnings of a sunrise.

"I'm coming, Alpha One…" she muttered and continued walking, not giving a second glance at the mutilated guards lying at the feet of the gates, quite a large pool of blood around the pieces of their bodies. "I'll be seeing you soon," she whispered as she continued to walk down the empty early-morning street.

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, now that was a fun chapter. Fun to write and as i read it i think it was also fun to read! Now, i know that i didnt really leave any mysteries in this chapter and you can probably already summaries what's what but still...I DO have a few things up my sleeves. ;)<strong>

**Now, as you probably noticed, my silpelits are...well, not aging like in the anime/manga. Why? Because i consider it a total and utter crap. By canon, Nana is around 7 years old, while she looks like a teen. Now, because i dont like this fact, i simply used the Great Power Of Being The Author to simply ignore that fact. I know that some people wont like me changing a core fact of the canon but really, i dont give a damn. It helps my story and if you like my story, it wont bother you. :)**

**Also, I know that you noticed how i wrote the world's reaction to the Dicloni. I've read some fanfictions and I've noticed some theme that after the Dicloni are being discovered, some pseudo-world peace follows. Humans and Dicloni living peacefully...and you know what i think of it? this: I call BULLSHIT. It simply CANNOT HAPPEN! Lets meet some facts. We, humans, are an ugly race. No one cant really deny it, but no one will admit it. We always fear what we dont understand. Also, simply look at the black and white people. Even after CENTURIES living together there is still a COLLOSAL amount of racism around! And not just with black people, there is racism against EVERY DAMN "race" on the planet even though we are in fact a single race. Some people dont like the Asian people because they dont look like normal Europian or American people. Some people dont like Africans that much because most of them are black. Many, many people are racists. People from Arabic countries are always expected to have a bomb stashed somewere beneath their clothes. There is alwaus descrimination and acts of racism. And now, you want me to believe that humanity, which is a quite racist race, can live peacefully with another race which seems to be genetically superior? NO! That's impossible! The simple fact that our annoying politicians will percieve them as a threat to their power will ensure that descrimination against them will be ALLOWED, not to talk about outright war and genocide against that race. While im not saying that all of us are racists, I know that there are a lot of people that dont really give a damn about the "race" of a man/woman or where they were born, but i find that all that "world peace" talks are utter bullshit unless people actually take measures against racism. I mean, how can you achieve "world peace" if there's no unity? So that brings us to this conclusion: It will take EONS until dicloni and humans could live together without killing each other. 20 years wont be enough, maybe 20 DECADES but not 20 years or even 50. Just look at our history and you will see the facts. If we treat members of our race as complete pieces of shit, how do you expect we will treat an entire genetically different race?**

**Not to diss any fanfiction authors who used the "psudo-peace between dicloni and humans" idea, i just had to get it out. Some oft he fics i read were amazing, and i liked them very much, but i just had to say that. :)**

**Now that my rant is out, due to the fact that im working with a blank page, I am not sure when the next chapter will be ready. So...i assume that the next chapter will be ready from a couple of days to a week from now.**

**Thank you for reading my story, I'm glad that you are wasting your possibly precious time on it! I welcome constructive criticism, suggestions, opinions and just plain comments. I hope that you enjoyed this chapter as much as i did while writing it. So, until next time, see you!**


	2. Visits

**Alright, ****im back! Now, i have terrible news, well, for me they are terrible. Around a week ago my OS went FUBAR and the short gist of the deal is that i had to format. Due to my back up files being deleted by my oh so generous (that asshole, but he DID buy me my new OS)**** uncle I lost EVERYTHING. And by everything i mean everything. Whats even morea nnoying, i had this chapter nearly done by that time. Now, after finally restoring almost everything back to its former glory, and getting used to using OpenOffice, i finally managed to rewrite the lost chapter. Its not the same thing i had before but its not that bad either.**

**Now, without further explenations, here is the new chapter! Enjoy!**_  
><em>

* * *

><p><em>Changes. That's just the way the world works. Nothing stays the same forever. We still live on, ignoring the changes that happen to the world. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. That's not to say that nothing changed because that would be lying.<em>

_Kitty changed, though I can't be sure if it's for better or for worse. I still remember the lost girl I picked up, who had no clue on how the world worked. Now...she's a devil. I blame TV on teaching her how to torture poor males like me._

_Kaede and Kohta grew even closer. It's hard to see, but it's there. The fact that they spend way too much time together – most of it alone and far away from our curious eyes – helps to see the truth._

_Nana grew as well...I think. She not a naive girl anymore and I have to admit that I've had some intelligent conversations with her before and it was...fun. We spend a lot more time together now, probably because we like the same TV shows; thus, much of our time together is in front of that brain-frying device._

_Mayu became rather popular in her school and now has many friends. Once she starts talking about school, there's no way to shut her up. She talks on the phone more often and goes out to hang out with her friends. I believe that Nana feels rejected because of it, being her best friend and everything. It might explain why she spends so much time with me and the TV, being a prisoner of the house just like myself._

_And me...I haven't changed. I'm still the friendly neighborhood (supposedly) unstable psychopath. I'm slowly growing more insane by being stuck in the house and constantly being berated for leaving. They don't complain much though. Kaede and Nana understand me perfectly, since they can pretty much go out to unpopulated places. They are not the 'world's most wanted' person, though. If someone spots me then it's straight to the evening news with some ludicrous story about me eating puppies or something..._

_Still, the world is changing. I can see it every time I travel through the city (by rooftops). I can feel it every time I look at the sky. Changes are coming, and I can't be sure if they are for the best or worst. I can only wait for them to come, and hope._

_- Alex, Alpha One._

* * *

><p>"No!" The resounding scream tore through the early morning silence. Kaede instantly became alert, slight fear striking her at the amount of agony and despair the scream contained. Quickly running out of the kitchen, she got to the living room in an instant to see the oddest scene.<p>

Alex was on the floor, his face contorted in agony and despair, his arms outstretched towards the TV screen, fingers twitching as if trying to grasp something out of reach. He seemed to be extremely close to tears.

"No, no, no, NO!" he screamed again. "Impossible, simply impossible! Why?" he asked the TV.

"Whats going on?" asked Nana groggily, slowly walking into the living room, rubbing one of her eyes. When she saw the grown man on the floor, pretty much wailing like a child, she stopped rubbing her eye, looked at him with a blank stare, then proceeded to raise an eyebrow.

Alex took a deep and calming breath. It didn't help much because his face switched from being agonized to completely enraged. He raised a shaking fist, as if intending on shattering the offending TV, but eventually just dropped the fist in defeat and started walking away dejectedly. When he passed them, Kaede could see the colossal amount of despair that was displayed on his face. He silently walked up the stairs and a few moments later, they heard him slam his door shut. Seconds later, a bewildered Kitty walked down, raising a questioning eyebrow once she saw Kaede.

Kaede simply returned the gesture, signaling that she didn't have a clue. The younger woman shrugged and went to the kitchen. Nana was curious, though. She went to the TV and looked at the screen and Kaede was surprised to see on the girl's face an expression similar – although less severe – to the one Alex had.

"God dammit!" Nana nearly screamed through clenched teeth.

* * *

><p>It was an interesting morning, to say the least. They arrived to Japan a few hours to sunrise and wholeheartedly agreed to spend the remaining hours on sleep.<p>

Most of the group woke up close to noon, with the exception of O'Brian and Amy who were, as Jack called them, morning people. It was relatively peaceful; everyone was eating their breakfast, Amy was watching TV...until said TV blew up in a small shower of sparks and pieces of plastic. Everyone turned to see what happened, O'Brian and Derrick brandishing their handguns, only to see Amy standing in front of the smoking remains of the TV, an expression of hellish rage on her face. The grown men decided to follow the course of action most wise people would take: they left her alone and kept their distance until she calmed down.

However, she never calmed down completely. She still raged inside but at least the threat of dismemberment wasn't there. Once they questioned her, they found out that the young Dicloni was pissed off because her favorite show (and supposedly the only good one on cable TV) had been canceled.

Now, hours later, they found themselves in their rented van. O'Brian was the driver as usual, Derrick sat beside him, Jack took most of the seats behind them by taking a nap, and Amy was way in the back of the van, visibly sulking, with Mike trying to cheer her up.

"Aw, don't worry, you will find something better to do," Mike attempted to raise her spirit.

"There won't be. You forget that we're talking about cable TV, which is utter and complete shit," Amy muttered dejectedly.

"She's right you know, cable is shit," Jack remarked, earning himself a halfhearted glare from Mike.

"Not helping here, mate."

"Screw that, let's kill those bastards!" Amy announced suddenly. "They practically committed an international crime!"

An uncomfortable silence soon followed, broken after several seconds by an awkward cough from Jack.

"Nah, lets not be doing any unnecessary homicidal acts, okay?" he suggested, snickering when he saw Amy return to her sulking.

"Anyway, we will be arriving soon, so stop whining," O'Brian said in a commanding tone. Amy simply raised her head and stared at the back of his head for several minutes until she finally sighed and relented.

* * *

><p>Weird was the only fitting word Kitty found. An hour earlier, Alex came downstairs from sulking in his room. It was then when he found a sad Nana and from there things went downhill.<p>

Right now Kitty was helping Kaede with their lunch meal and she couldn't help but send Alex and Nana a weird look as they sat around the table and conspired about plans on how to kill the people who canceled their show. Not only did the importance of the show baffle her, but also the completely moronic and outright insane plans Alex came up with left her flabbergasted. The scariest part was that most of these plans would've worked. She had to wonder if he used such a plan to escape the institute and kill Kakuzawa.

"No, that won't work," Nana said, shaking her head.

"Why not? I climb the building next door and proceed to bombard them with random objects! That ought to hurt someone there," he said, crossing his arms in front of him and leaning on the table.

"Nah, the police will respond quickly, with a helicopter and everything," she replied.

"Meh, it will take them eons to get there."

"You forget that you're pretty famous, so they will get there on time."

"Damn, I hate it when you're right, well, it was a boring plan anyway..." he trailed off when he felt something in the back of his head. In fact, every person in the kitchen froze at that moment. It was a sensation that he hadn't felt in almost a year but he recognized it and the signature he sensed.

"Huh, it appears that we have guests," he said aloud when he discerned that the signature was moving in their direction and it was getting there fast, probably in a vehicle.

They spent the next five minutes in complete silence, unmoving. He saw Kaede's grip on the kitchen knife tighten, Nana narrow her eyes as she concentrated on the signature and Kitty clenched her jaw as she sent him a glare. Alex earned that glare mostly due to his smiling face and silent snickers. By this time Alex already recognized the signature fully and by that time the signature was already there.

They heard a car stop near their house and the engine turning off seconds later. They heard a small ruckus of voices, most of the voices male, and they surprisingly spoke English instead of Japanese.

Knowing that he might not have a second chance he quickly rushed out of the kitchen to the garden and the gate, ignoring the warning cry of Kitty. She ran after him but by the time she got outside, he was already at the gate. She was about to shout for him to stop but it was already too late as he pulled the gate open.

"Yo!" he said loudly, nearly shouting, as he opened the door in a rush, revealing five rather put off grown men. "What's up?" he asked them with a wide grin. Mike and O'Brian looked at each other, the former giving an incredulous look while the latter raised an eyebrow.

"Uh...hey?" Jack tried.

"Come on in, so how are you guys?" Alex asked them as he moved aside, allowing them to step in.

"Err, fine I guess," Mike replied, rather put off by the male Dicloni's behavior. In all honesty, he was expecting a punch in the face, or losing an arm or a leg...but not this.

Amy entered last and looked at Alex, who only widened his grin. "Hah, you're not a midget anymore!" he said when he finished checking her out. She had indeed grown taller, leaving Alex only half a head taller than her. Mike unconsciously gulped when he saw Amy's eyebrow twitch in annoyance. If she was in a bad mood earlier, she was going to arrange a bloodbath now that she heard that...

"Hmpf, you stopped looking like shit," she commented.

"Ah, the wonders of life, right? You look cuter without all those bruises and bandages covering you," he replied, still wearing that shit eating grin.

Amy's eyebrow twitched again, but this time it was accompanied by a little reddening of her face. He was the one who got her into those bandages and gave her the bruises, after all. She also couldn't ignore that damn compliment.

"I...uh...okay. So...how are you?" she eventually said when she regained control of her face.

"SSDD, that's all I can say," he replied. "Come on in, we're making lunch and we don't mind having several guests," he said to everyone, waving them into the house, all the while ignoring the incredulous-looking Kitty standing on the porch.

"Kaede! Make room for five more and don't kill our guests!" Alex cried, hoping that Kaede would listen to him.

* * *

><p>Mayu expected the day to be normal, or at least as normal as it can be with Alex around. She went out for a walk with Wanta and expected to return home just in time for lunch. What she didn't expect was the five new additions to the table: Four unknown men and a horned girl around her and Nana's age. For some reason, Mayu suspected that Alex had something to do with their guests...at least those awful death glares from Kitty and Kaede hinted at that.<p>

After a quick introduction, things settled down. She was quite shocked to learn that these men nearly killed Kitty and Alex but the fact that Alex was so friendly to them told that he held no ill feelings...or that he was truly insane. After they finished the food she quietly listened to the conversation the "adults" had. She quickly found herself losing interest, though, and decided to go talk with the girl, who was having a quiet conversation with Nana.

"At least she found something to distract herself from that show being canceled," Jack said, but unfortunately not quiet enough. Much to the guest's surprise, it was as if a dark cloud passed over Alex, Nana and Amy.

"Those assholes..." Alex muttered in grief.

"What? Not you too..." Mike shook his head in defeat.

"Hey, don't you judge me. I've been sitting on my ass for almost a year now. A man's got to have something to do, you know?" Alex explained heatedly.

"Okay..." O'Brian replied. "So, how's life been treating you?" he asked.

"Oh, it's fine. I'm bored out of my mind, but fine. Cant get out much, being Japan's most wanted and all that..." Alex explained. "You?"

"Nothing major. We've been moving around the world, doing a job here and there," Derrick answered.

"So...what brought you back to Japan? I take it you know how they treat our kind here?" he said, taking a complete U-turn into seriousness and sending a sidelong glance at Amy.

"Yeah, but that's the reason...they contacted us when we were in the States. I assume you heard about the new institute?" Andrew asked, getting a nod in reply. "So they decided that because we have Amy on our team, we should come and help them out in the new institute."

"What kind of help? They're not going to lock her up, are they?" Alex asked with a raised eyebrow.

"As far as I know, its guard duty. You know, help to keep them in check and maybe repel the occasional angry mob of idiots," the mercenary replied, referring to an incident a month ago when an angry mob tried breaking into the institute to get the 'mutant bitches.' Luckily, a police force quickly arrived at the scene and repelled the mob.

"I see..." Alex scratched his chin in thought. "So you're guarding the Dicloni and the people of the institute in case an outbreak occurs."

"I guess so, but I doubt we will be working that much. There haven't been any serious cases of Dicloni murders in a long while," Jack piped in. Alex frowned at those words, causing Andrew to narrow his eyes, demanding an explanation.

"This morning on the news, one of the higher-ups in Kakuzawa's institute was found dead in his home. Most definitely a Dicloni's work, nothing else can rip apart a man like that..." the male Dicloni trailed off.

"I see. That will make it more difficult for the Dicloni, that's for sure. It might make our jobs in the new institute a little more difficult, too."

"What did she think of the whole job thing?" Alex asked them, gesturing with his head at Amy's direction.

"She...wasn't really sure about it but she said that she wanted to see it," Andrew explained. Alex nodded, understanding what he meant by saying that.

"Hah, you know where I live so you can visit again and tell me what's up with the new institute, 'cause I want to know as well." Alex said with a smile.

"Well," O'Brian said, standing up. "I think we will be going now. We still have some distance to travel to get to the institute and it looks like Lucy will start killing us one by one if we don't get out of her house," he said, giving a nod to Kaede, who narrowed her eyes at the sound of her old codename.

"Yeah, she can be like that. I'm bound to get beaten up now by two furious females and I don't really want you to be here to see this. You don't want to know how embarrassing this is..." Alex said with a smile, giving a wink to Kitty as he led the mercenaries out to the porch.

"Good luck with that," Mike said after a short laugh.

"You can visit us any time, it gets boring as hell here sometimes, so don't be strangers now that you're back in the country," Alex said, opening the gate for them.

"Thanks for the lunch. Maybe we will visit, Amy seems to like you," Mike remarked, causing Amy to bristle with a hue of red on her face.

"Is that so?" he asked, giving the young girl a sidelong glance and a wink, which caused her to blush further.

"Well, we will be going now. Uh, thanks again," O'Brian said and offered his hand.

Alex gave it an odd look but eventually gave it a firm shake. "Thanks for what?" he asked with a smile, which was returned by O'Brian.

The mercenary gang quickly filed into their van and soon enough they drove off, the sound of the engine filling the quiet street. Alex watched them until they disappeared around the corner and he closed the gate with a sigh, already knowing what to expect.

Turning around he couldn't help but gulp at the sight of two furious women walking towards him.

"Alex, dear, do you mind explaining to me what THAT was all about?" Kitty asked him in a frighteningly sweet voice.

* * *

><p>She quietly walked into the old and unfinished building. It was the kind of building that had once been under construction, but for one reason or another, the construction had to stop, leaving an unfinished building. Homeless people or worse, ranging from violent gangs to drug dealers or addicts, usually occupied these buildings. No one ever wanted to bother those people, and it was rare that the residents bothered anyone outside. Thus, it was common practice to avoid such places and leave the residents alone.<p>

The young woman didn't fear anything in this abandoned building, mostly because there was nothing and no one to fear. This building, "her" building, had been cleared out of such trash a long time ago. No one cared for that trash and thus no one came looking for it. This was the perfect place for her.

She quietly moved down the stairs to the basement level, her quiet footsteps echoed around her, returning from the walls twice as louder. She didn't worry; it wasn't as if someone would actually hear her footsteps. Upon walking down to the trash-filled basement, she walked to the farthest wall, her target a large metal door.

Unlike the basement itself, which had a thick layer of dust on the floor and various pieces of random trash lying around everywhere, the door had the appearance of a frequently used item. While it still had a few specks of rust here and there, it was in a good condition.

When she reached the door, she stopped in front of it, picking up a small rock from the floor. She then proceeded to knock on the door using the rock, knocking two times, waiting three seconds, and then knocking three times. She repeated the process and then quietly waited.

Seconds later the she heard the sounds of muffled metal shuffling and with an annoying metallic screech, the door was pushed open, revealing a slim-looking young girl behind it. The girl wore worn-looking clothes, comprised of a ragged-looking skirt and a rather dirty white tank top that did nothing to hide her well-developing breasts. The most interesting feature were a pair of horns growing out of the sides of her head, which was covered by waist-length hair. Upon seeing the young woman that knocked on the door, the girl's eyes widened and she gave the woman a tackling hug that almost caused the older girl to fall on her back.

"Alice, you're back!" the girl cried, giving the older woman, who was like an older sister to her, a wide smile.

"Twenty-Six, were you worried?" the young woman asked, her usually grim face allowing the slimmest of smiles to show.

Twenty-Six, or Hana as she preferred, frowned for a split second as she heard her given number. Alice always called everyone by their number, instead of their names. She claimed that it was to remember where they came from. It worked she had admit, whenever she was called by her number it reminded her of that god damned place.

"Well, I was, sort of. You were gone for longer than usual. Have you found what you were looking for?" Hana asked her, the smile returning to her lips.

"No, but I found a lead. I will be leaving again soon," Alice replied, her face returning to the usual grim mask.

"I see...you'd better head inside; Izumi will be serving dinner soon. I bet you're hungry from your journey," Hana said, offering Alice another warm smile.

"I might do just that," Alice replied and entered, not bothering to look at how Hana closed the heavy metal door behind her.

She walked through the dusty hallway until she reached a large well-lit room that had another trio of other hallways leading away from the entrance. She took the right-hand corridor and slowly walked, passing by girls of various ages that all gave her a warm greeting and she returning them her own. When she finally reached the end of the hallways she entered a large room, filled with couches, chairs and tables, most of which were occupied, and a small side room that had a delicious smell drifting out of it. Most of the occupants of the room gave her a greeting as she grabbed her own seat. Soon enough a short girl who looked to be slightly younger than Alice approached her. She wore an apron over her clothes, which consisted of a pair of white shorts and a very large black T-shirt that went down to her knees. Her ruby hair was tied into a ponytail, which accented her horns, that went down between her shoulder blades. While being around Alice's age, she was one of the shortest in their small community, being nearly a head shorter than Alice.

"Hello Izumi," Alice greeted her with one of her rare smiles.

"Hey Alice, I guess you're hungry?" Izumi asked tiredly with a raised eyebrow. Being one of the only people able to cook in this place made her quite popular and gave her a job that took most of her time.

"What do you think?" Alice asked her, a small smirk on her lips.

"Aww, you never visit me just for the fun of it, only for food," Izumi said with a pout. "So, you found him?" she asked, her eyes twinkling in curiosity.

Alice let out a sigh. "No, but I found a lead, so I'll be going out soon," Alice explained for the fifth time, getting tired of explaining it.

"Oh, okay, I guess I'll have to feed you well!" Izumi said with a wide smile and skipped back to the kitchen.

Alice sighed and leaned back in her chair, allowing her aching muscles some rest. This abandoned building was supposed to be for people with a good deal of money, providing security, elevators. and safety. However, the building was never finished; only the bomb-shelter the Dicloni now occupied was completed. A gang was living there and using it as a drug den, so they had to clear the place out. It wasn't hard, but it was a bit of a hassle. Eventually, they managed to get all the unwanted items and people disposed of and cleaned the place. This place was their haven, their stronghold and their home.

Alice quietly sat, waiting for her meal, listening to some of the conversations around her, the most popular one being about Minori trying to set up a working TV for this place. Alice sighed again. Soon enough Izumi returned with a steaming bowl of rice and placed it on the table in front of Alice, giving her a wink before she left. Alice watched her return to the kitchen with an absentminded smile before she returned her attention to her much-wanted food. She decided to rest for a day before she will head out to Kamakura.

* * *

><p>The van stopped by the metal gates. It was already dark outside, the sun having been down for about half an hour before they reached the walled location. The guards at the gate stopped them at gunpoint and asked for their papers, which O'Brian happily provided. The guard then left them alone when he went to check them out with his superiors.<p>

O'Brian was getting annoyed by Jack's constant whining about having pains in the ass from sitting all day, Derrick was close to hitting Jack, Mike was agitated because Amy seemed to start losing her patience, and with good reason.

Unfortunately for Amy, Jack noticed her blush several times when they met Alex and he refused to shut up about it. Amy, getting quite enraged by the human as he got under her skin eventually snapped and delivered Jack an invisible slap to the back of his head, delivered by a vector, which knocked him out for two hours. Considering it was Jack, no one reprimanded her for her actions. Luckily for Jack, his self preservation instincts kicked in when he woke up and he wisely chose to shut up whenever Amy looked at him. She was still massively pissed, if her death glares were any indications.

O'Brian shut everyone up when he spotted the guard returning with the company of another man.

"You will have to leave the car here," The guard explained, handing O'Brian their documents. They proceeded to get out of the car, or in Jack's case, get kicked out by Amy, and walked over to the gate, where the unknown man was waiting for them.

The man wore a dark suit and he appeared to be from European descent. "Gentlemen," he greeted sending a glance at Amy. "And young lady, my name is Steve Burns and I would like to welcome you to the Diclonius institute number one."

* * *

><p><strong>Okay...i have to say one thing: do not worry, no rants this time! Heh, now, while this chapter is shorter than i expected...a lot shorter, i expected 9 pages to be a bit longer, its still good enough for me, since it told everything i wanted to tell in this chapter. Now, i hope you enjoyed this chapter, since i loved writing (and rewriting .) it. <strong>

**Thanks for all the reviews and favs and alerts! I'm very glad you like this story and enjoy reading it, your support helps me a lot. Thank you for reading this chapter, I gladly accept constructive criticism, any suggestions, ideas and just general opinions. Once again, thank you for reading this ^^**

**Until next time, Delvaro out!**


	3. Plans

**Oh yeah! Woo-hoo! Yes, yes, I'm in a very, very good mood. Now that I am in the right state of mind (AKA I'm finally sober enough to write properly) I have finally wrote the new chapter. Like i said earlier (Not sure if i actually said anything) I had a series of annoying exams and several days ago they finally ended. Thats why I have'nt updated any story for a while. And just in case you actually care, i passed them with flying colors ^^.**

**Anyway, now that these exams are officially over, I have a shitload of free time and a shitload of free time means a shitload of writing time! Anyway, this chapter is extremely short mostly because of my still unrecovered brain. Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this chapter! Read on!**

* * *

><p>Burns was a man in his early thirties with sand-colored hair and dark blue eyes. He permeated an aura of tiredness. After initial introductions, Amy and the group followed the man inside. The first thing that Amy noticed, and didn't like, were the high walls that surrounded the place, covered with barbed wire, of all things, at the top. She managed to catch a glimpse of a guard tower with a sniper on top before they entered through the place through the main gate.<p>

Inside they found a short corridor with several armed guards, metal detectors and other means of security, like that small camera Amy noticed at one corner. She shot a glimpse toward her 'family' and saw that they were looking around with calculating eyes, inspecting every detail. Even Jack was unusually serious.

They passed through the security checkpoint where the guards politely asked the mercenaries to hand over any weapon they might have, sending a hesitating glance at Amy once she glared at the request. Burns swiped a key-card at the door at the end of the corridor before allowing them to pass through.

Outside, they found themselves at a courtyard, which was, much to Amy's surprise, quite charming and lovely. Small paved trails led from one building to another, and a small fountain was located in the center of the intersection of all the trails. The rest of the place contained lush and fresh grass, several large trees, some benches, and, much to Amy's bafflement, some monkey bars and swings. The place was well lit and clean. To her surprise, the whole place looked like a park…just a very guarded park.

Once she was actually inside, she was able to get a much better look at the whole place. She counted five large two-story buildings and five guard towers and as they walked to the center building, which she guessed was the main building due to it being larger than the others, an armed patrol passed them.

"I have noticed that you have a tight security," O'Brian stated casually. "Armed guards, guard towers, security cameras everywhere..."

"Well, yes. My superiors don't want any risks and it's here for two reasons." Burns replied, fidgeting slightly as Amy stared at him. "Around four weeks ago some... feisty protestors came to our front door. We tried reasoning with them and we believed they would disperse until a small group among them raised weapons. Luckily for us it ended without any losses but since then we tightened security," he explained.

"The way I see it, it's just another prison," Amy said bitterly. Burns turned to look at her and Amy was surprised to see his tired-looking eyes.

"I don't ask you to understand. There are people among us who can mutilate us with a simple look and thought, and that is what worries everyone. People are scared out of their minds. Some call for your extermination while some want to welcome you with open arms. Unlike Kakuzawa's place, all the world governments know of this institute and specialists from all around the world regulate it. I'm here by the UN's orders and I can ensure you that there are no sick experiments here. Despite what you may believe, the security here is both _for_ and _from_ you," he explained, somewhat bitterly.

Amy didn't answer, just continued to follow him in silence.

"You don't sound pleased by it," Derrick commented.

"I'm just worried," Burns replied evenly. "The incident from four weeks ago shows that we should worry about some extremists. The fact that armed men came right to our doorstep shows us that some of them are bloodthirsty. I am just worried that next time a miniature army will come here next time."

"I see," Derrick said slowly.

The woman at the front desk greeted them as they entered the main building before Burns led them to the elevator. All that time there was that odd and uncomfortable silence surrounding them but it faded away as soon as they reached the small office that belonged to Burns. The man gestured at some chairs before taking his own seat, and turned his attention to the computer screen as he typed in something.

"Alright, I'll arrange you housing at the guard barracks, though I have to ask if your companion wishes to stay with you or if I should arrange her housing with someone her own age." Burns asked as he continued typing.

"Oh, so now you want to lock me up here?" Amy asked loudly with a frown. The man stopped typing before locking eyes with her.

"No, I just asked if you want to be with your kind for a bit and with someone your age instead."

Amy blinked before she realized what he meant. "I'm not a kid!" she exclaimed. "I've been in fights and if you hired them, you hired me too!"

Burns looked taken by surprise. "Uh... sorry but we don't hire underage girls into guard duty and no, it doesn't matter if said girl can lift objects with a thought," he said. Amy looked slightly dejected before sending a glance at her team member for support.

"You heard the man..." O'Brian said. Amy just sighed before saying that she would stay with the team, even if she couldn't work with them.

"As you wish. I just thought you will get along with my daughter, since you speak English and she can't speak Japanese very well yet," he said with a shrug as he returned to his typing. Everyone perked at the mention of a daughter.

"You brought your daughter here?" Mike asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, that's one of the two reasons I'm here in the first place. You weren't informed I guess. It's not a secret here anyway that the daughter of the director is a Diclonius."

Everyone perked even more at those words. Mike just assumed that he brought his daughter here, his _human_ daughter, but to his surprise, the man had a Diclonius daughter.

"I wasn't aware that there were Dicloni outside of Japan," O'Brian said with furrowed eyebrows.

"Oh, there are Dicloni outside of Japan, but the number is miniscule when compared to Japan. It's part of the reason why this facility is in Japan in the first place. Some believe that this is the place where the Dicloni originally originated from and thought that this will be a much more effective place for a facility," Burns explained, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"Your daughter is...like me?" Amy asked quietly.

"Yes, around the same age too. She doesn't have many friends here since she cant properly speak the language so I believed that letting my daughter get to know you will be helpful to her," he glanced at her before resuming his work.

"I'll think about it," Amy replied at the unspoken question.

"Anyway, that's part of the reason why I'm here. I was one of the top Dicloni researchers in England but we had only seven residents in our facility there. I believed that working here would be a great opportunity to learn more about your kind so I applied for the job. Being one of the best, I was accepted so now I'm here."

Several minutes passed in silence, only the sound of the plastic keyboard filling the air, before finally Burns stopped typing and fully turned to them. "Alright, I added you to the system. You four will get your security cards tomorrow after briefing so until tomorrow morning you are free to do as you wish," he finished with a smile.

"Can you tell us what the job will entail? We didn't get many details before," Jack asked.

"Oh, it's nothing serious," Burns replied, "You just need to keep the order here, attempt to break up fights if they happen – don't worry, none have happened yet – and patrol the grounds at night. You will receive more details tomorrow at briefing so for now, you are dismissed." O'Brian nodded and stood up, quickly followed by the others. They turned to the door and left the room.

"Well, what do you think?" Mike asked once they were a distance from the office.

"He's a much more pleasant man than Kakuzawa," Jack summarized.

"That's not something that's hard to accomplish..." Derrick replied dryly.

"I agree. Back to topic, this place looks much better than Kakuzawa's place," O'Brian added.

"Indeed. Doesn't seem like the job will be too hard to do," Jack said quietly.

"Yeah, but something still bothers me," Mike said, causing everyone to look at him. "If this job is so easy, why did they hire us? I mean, this job is something that a normal soldier, even a cop, could do."

"Hmm... I believe we should ask that tomorrow morning. It does seem too simple for mercs of our caliber," Jack commented smugly.

They continued chatting about the new job until they reached the lobby, where a young woman greeted them and told them that she would lead them to their rooms. They followed her outside into the cool evening air and walked toward the smallest building on the farthest end of the facility. Once there, the woman swiped a key-card to unlock the door and lead them to the second floor before stopping before a door.

"This will be your room. Take note that you shouldn't leave the building until tomorrow since you don't have the necessary key-cards yet and you will be locked outside if you leave. The room will have everything you need. Good night," the woman said before she turned and left.

"Well, shall we go inside?" Mike asked and Andrew opened there door.

Many things crossed Amy's mind when they entered the room but only one of them stuck: luxurious. Jack let out a whistle as he entered behind her. The room was rather big and it was the equivalent of a living room. There was a large, quite comfortable-looking couch facing a rather large TV. A small table was in one of the corners, right near the mini-fridge (which Jack attacked the very moment he noticed it).

Soon enough scouting commenced where every member of their group was looking around, searching for whatever interesting they could find. From the living room were three doors: the first two leading to the bedrooms and the third leading to the bathrooms.

"Hmm, this place sure is cozy," Mike muttered as he crashed on the couch.

"Yeah, I wonder how the rooms for the Dicloni look like..." Amy muttered.

"I will guess that they aren't worse than this one. I mean, the guy's daughter is staying here..." Jack added as he opened a can of soda and took a swig.

"Indeed," Derrick agreed and entered one of the bedrooms. "I'm going to crash now, I haven't gotten any sleep today..." he said as he disappeared from view.

Andrew looked after him before yawning. "Now that he reminds me of sleep, I think I'll go to sleep as well," he said before he left as well.

Mike and Amy looked at Jack with expectant looks. He paused, mid-sip, to look at them. "What? I don't want to sleep," he eventually explained.

"Whatever," muttered Amy before grabbing the remote control. She turned on the TV and immediately recognized the channel. Narrowing her eyes, she switched to the next channel before sighing in annoyance. "Fuck, I can't escape from cable TV..." she mumbled in dismay.

"Meh, if you don't like it, give me the remote," Mike said and outstretched his hand.

Amy's face turned into a contemplating mask as she looked from the remote to the hand. Mike suddenly had the urge to pull the hand back and run away as far as he could from the way she was looking at the arm right now. She then turned her eyes to him in a silent threat and he wisely pulled his arm back before she took it off his shoulder. He sighed in annoyance as he saw the smug look on Amy's face as she began channel surfing. She always won the remote...

* * *

><p>Alex was staring in silence at the TV screen, a grim aura surrounding him. Aizawa Shiro found dead in his home, literally torn to shreds. Alex sat there at the table, elbows propped on it and chin resting on his hands, staring at the screen long after the new ended, his mind working in overdrive.<p>

This was a bad development. It was obvious that it was a Diclonius responsible for Aizawa's death. There was no evidence to point to the responsible, no evidence of a weapon or anything else. For all it seemed, Aizawa had been torn apart by nothing but that was impossible and every somewhat knowledgeable person would know what could do this. By this time, things had started to calm down, but with this new murder, things would heat up quickly. Anti-Dicloni movements would have a Christmas party now with all the new reasons to eradicate the race. This was a problem. While he didn't care that Aizawa was dead and he was partially happy that he died in such a gruesome way, he wasn't happy that now all the blame will go on the Dicloni as a whole instead of on the individual who had killed Aizawa.

He opened his cigarette pack and took out one of his smoke sticks and lit it up, finally taring his gaze from the screen to watch the swirling smoke that was rising to the ceiling. If things were to continue as they were now the shit might just hit the fan. Nowadays every unsolved murder was blamed on the Diclonius race. He had seen footage of the new Dicloni facility and he was glad at the changes he was seeing but other than those who ran the facility and the superiors he didn't see anyone getting ready to help them.

He wasn't sure when this started happening but Kitty started claiming that he developed a freaking hero complex when he escape from the facility a second time and saved her the second time. Oddly enough, he agreed with her but unlike many, he could actually do something about the situation. After all, he was almost as well known as some Hollywood stars... only for the wrong reasons, such as murdering and shoplifting ("It's a lie!" he screamed when they announced it on TV).

Especially when he had the right connections... he chuckled to himself as he remembered the interview Jirou took. That made him famous. Of course, that also ensured that he was watched but Alex had his ways to contact him. Maybe it was time to actually do something about this?

His musing was brought short by a somewhat painful sensation in the back of his head, caused by a slap from the vengeful Kaede. "How many times have I told you not to smoke at the house?" she growled at him as he chocked on the smoke he inhaled just at the moment of the slap. "Go outside, dammit!"

Alex stood up and went out to the garden, rubbing the back of his head dejectedly. "Why am I getting beaten up by women everyday?" he muttered to himself as he passed by Nana and Mayu who just returned from a walk with Wanta.

"Do you realize how pathetic that sounded just now?" Nana asked with a victorious smirk.

Alex responded with an offended pout. "Not my fault that Kohta goes to college every day and leaves me in a lair of bloodthirsty banshees..."

"Who're you calling a banshee?" Kaede shouted from the kitchen.

"See?" he pointed in the direction of the kitchen. "She's out for my blood!" he said with a grin, taking another puff of the cigarette.

"Are you still smoking here? Get the hell out!" Kaede shouted again, this time accompanied by the sound of a drawer opening and the telltale sound of metal being drawn. Alex paled at that sound, knowing that Kaede took a knife.

"I'm going, I'm going!" He shouted back and nearly ran outside ignoring the giggling Mayu and laughing Nana.

Once outside he stopped in the middle of the garden, taking another puff and looking into the night sky. He enjoyed nights like these, when the sky was clear, the stars visible (as much as they could be visible here in the city), and the moon high in the sky. The cool night breeze ruffled his mess of a haircut and blew the smoke he produced away.

He was already thinking, once again seriousness taking place in his expression. He had a revelation all of a sudden. He was trying to think of a plan but then he remembered that his accomplishments had never been accomplished using plans. Well, unless you consider the constant 'wing it' plan, if it even counted as a plan...

What mattered is that he already knew what he was going to do. After that... he will just take care of it once the time comes. Fairly simple in his opinion. It wasn't like any of his plans ever failed anyway, though he couldn't be sure that his latest plan, where he ended up in a short-lived coma, could be considered a full success.

He smiled to himself before taking one last puff and throwing the butt over the wall before returning inside. Maybe Kaede and Kitty will stop wanting to murder him..

* * *

><p><strong>And thats it. Yes, I know, its not that long but its my complex anyway. I honestly prefer long chapter with much happening in them but for some reason i cant write long chapters. Well, each one to his own. At least I updated, right? Usually i disappear for several months and believe me, im trying to break that habit and i think its actually working for once! Anyway, i hope you liked this chapter and you probably noticed that Amy has a bigger role in this story so... yeah. Anyway, i hope you loved this chapter, enough to leave a review at the least. I will love to get constructive criticism, opinions, suggestions, ideas and just plain comments on the story. Anything will do :P And, once again, thank you for reading the story :). <strong>

**Until next time, Delvaro out!**


	4. Directors

**Wow. I must apologize. I was honestly planning on updating this much, much sooner. I also managed to get a beta-reader for this story so now you will be able to enjoy this story with much better grammar, well, until I manage to figure out how to use this cursed OpenOffice and finally use the edited chapters...  
><strong>

**Anyway, ****I was so distracted by so many things, like my side-projects, other stories that I currently work on and all that...I was honestly planning on updating this a lot, _a lot_ sooner.****Anyway, sorry again, especially to my new beta-reader, who I really neglected. Luckily, I managed to get a lot of practice through all this delay and this chapter is a lot longer than usual! hopefully, the next chapter will be even better. Have fun reading this!**

**Note: This is the beta-read version, so all the errors and grammar issues were fixed! Special thanks to my beta-reader, Spabble!**

* * *

><p><em>Places. Everyone has his or her own place in the world. Sometimes, you are born in that place and call it home. Unlucky people are not and they spend many years trying to figure out where they belong. People who find the place where they belong feel content with it, happy and complete. Sadly, few people actually find the place where they belong and many end up making their own place, finding a replacement.<em>

_That is the case with humans._

_Unfortunately, we, the Diclonius race, have no place in this human-controlled world. Individual Dicloni might make their own place, live in hiding, live among humans, or form groups and survive together. Others might go on killing-sprees to avenge the cruel treatment they suffered from humans. As a whole race though, we do not belong._

_I __can__ see __it __clear __as __day __when __I __watch __the __news. __To __the __humans, __we__ are __the __out siders, __the __aliens, __regardless __of __the __fact __that __we __evolved __alongside __the __humans__. __Even __now, __I__ see __how __they __gather __us __together __and __put __us __in__ special __facilities __meant __to __protect __us __from __the __society __and __protect __the __society __from __us. __It __reminds __me __of __what __I__ read __about __the __Second __World __War. __What __will __be __next?_

_For now, they are just sticking us, the invaders, in one place and holding us there until they figure out what to do with us. What will happen next? Will we get human rights and be allowed to mingle with human society, or will extermination follow? Sometimes I'm scared of the future._

_For now, Kitty and I have no place in the world. We live with Kaede, Kohta and their family, but we are invaders to their home. We are welcomed invaders, but we are still invaders. I think Kitty understands it as well; the girl is too smart for her own good sometimes. For now, we are just the temporary family members. Just my presence brings danger to them, and sometimes I want to run away as far as possible, taking my troubles away with me, so that they can live in peace._

_I never do that though. The look Kitty gives me, the way she touches my hand and the smiles everyone gives me keep me there for now, despite all the dangers I might bring on their heads._

_- Alex, Alpha One._

XXXX

"So much for my superhero plans..." Alex muttered to himself as he tried on the new clothes he picked. "Breaking into stores at night just to get a new outfit...how the mighty have fallen."

Indeed, when one had the ability to manipulate telekinetic arms, turning off alarms and unlocking locks was ridiculously easy. He glanced at the security camera and gave it the one-finger salute. He was already wanted for mass murder, so it didn't really matter if he added breaking and entering into it.

A few minutes later Alex stood in front of the mirror, looking at his new outfit. It had taken him a while to find the correct clothes, but at least now he looked classy. If he was a world-class criminal, he had to look the part as well. Looking like a hoodlum totally cramped his style. Now he wore a gray classy suit, similar to what Tony Montana wore in Scarface. He even had the shades to go with the new look. He grinned to himself at the thought. Scarface rocked.

He picked up his old clothes and sifted through the pockets, taking out all the money he had. At least his new hobby was paying well. Who knew beating up and robbing street thugs was so fun and profitable? He left all the money on the counter, knowing that it was more than enough to pay for all the clothes he took, Then he left the shop, making sure he re-locked the doors and reactivated the alarm.

The streets were just about empty at this hour, though there were the occasional early risers walking down the street, too drowsy or not caring enough to notice the internationally-wanted murderer walking by them. He really hoped that Kitty and Kaede wouldn't kill him once they realized he had left the house to do something stupid. Alex still had several hours to get as far away as possible and the fact that he was undetectable to Dicloni was helping.

* * *

><p>Amy woke up surprisingly early. Usually she slept until noon and no one bothered her, but this morning she woke up even before sunrise. She spent the first two hours just lying in her bed, trying to return to the warm realm of sleep, but it was to no avail. It was then when she remembered that she basically had free reign in the facility due to the fact that she was technically an employee.<p>

With that thought in mind, she quickly got dressed and made her way out of the room, taking care to avoid waking up her teammates. They still had several hours of sleep and she had no reason to take that away from them.

To her surprise, once she walked out of their room she realized that she was not the earliest riser. Milling about were the early morning guards, ranging from the tired-looking men who had just finished their night shift to the groggy–looking men who had just woken up to start their morning shift.

This reminded Amy that she was bunking in the barracks — with all the guards. Unsurprisingly, some of the men there gave her either confused or concerned looks. She didn't really make an effort to hide her horns anyway, so it was obvious what she was. However, most of the guards seemed to have already been notified of her presence, since no one approached her to ask her what she was doing there. The other possibility was that they were scared shitless. She opted to choose the latter, which consequently led to the birth of her newest hobby.

Who knew it was actually fun to glare at the guards and watch them squirm?

She spent the rest of the early morning doing exactly that. She wasn't even aware she was capable of glaring at people for so long. The good part of that occupation was that she soon memorized the layout of the barracks and knew the place like her own hand. Despite it being fun for an hour or so, she eventually became bored and decided to head outside to breathe some fresh air.

It was a beautiful sunny morning with an acceptable amount of clouds lazily drifting in the sky. The only people that were outside were the guards, which left her to wonder where all the Dicloni were. There wasn't a single trace of them so far, which made her think that the place was more like a prison. The guards were probably releasing the Dicloni several times a day for a walk and nothing else. Still, it was a large improvement from Kakuzawa's place.

Her aimless wandering eventually took her to a quite confusing sight. She had already seen it before, during the night, but now that there was daylight, she could see it much more clearly. It was a playground with monkey bars, swings and even a sandbox. It made her wonder if any of the Dicloni inmates were actually using those, since it was much more amusing to use vectors to do interesting things. She knew that was _her_ opinion, though; she wouldn't be so quick to judge others.

However, the playground wasn't what caught her interest. Instead, it was the girl who was sitting on one of the swings, her head down. The girl's appearance screamed "lonely" at her.

The girl had bright red wavy hair that reached her lower back and wore a light blue short dress and a pair of sneakers. Amy couldn't see her face, both from her position and because the girl kept her head low, allowing her hair to obscure her face. By the looks of it, the girl appeared to be around the same age as Amy.

Despite the common belief that many stupid humans had, the Dicloni in Kakuzawa's institute had rarely interacted with each other. They could feel the others' presences, but other than that...no contact whatsoever. The only members of her race whom she had ever spoken with were Alex, Kitty and those other Dicloni they lived with nowadays, but she couldn't go as far as to say that she actually knew them. Other than their names, some of their interests and how powerful they were, she had no knowledge about them.

That lead her to the conclusion that she was simply not a social being. Other than the team she belonged to, she rarely spoke with anyone else. However, that was not to say that she wasn't curious. She found it quite embarrassing to know that she barely knew anything about her own race.

With that thought in mind, she approached the lone Diclonius, beginning to wonder just why the girl was outside to begin with.

Amy stopped in front of the girl and the girl raised her head, looking at Amy with curious eyes, which happened to be the same color as her hair. They stood like that for several moments, making Amy feel slightly awkward. The girl seemed to concentrate intensely on something before she spoke with with a shaky, stuttering voice. "O-hayo-goz-zaimasu," she greeted with apparent difficulty.

Amy narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her, wondering why the girl was having trouble speaking. She had to wonder if the old institute tortured the girl so much that she couldn't even speak properly. That thought filled her with unbridled rage.

The girl was visibly struggling to find anything to say. Amy didn't know whether it was because she was making the girl feeling nervous or because the girl couldn't find any words to say. Eventually, it seemed that the girl simply snapped. "Oh, I don't know any Japanese so go away," she whined in English, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Amy rolled her eyes before replying in her already-perfected English, "I figured as much." She couldn't help but smirk when she saw the gobsmacked expression the girl now wore, coupled with a gaping mouth and wide eyes.

"You know English!" the girl exclaimed and Amy found that she was curious about the girl's accent. "And you're new here, aren't you?"

"I thought it was obvious by now," Amy replied dryly, wondering why the girl was stating obvious things. "I arrived here last night."

"Ah...sorry about earlier. Not many people know English here so I don't have many people to talk to..." the girl said quietly. "I'm Diane," she said, offering a hand.

Amy glanced at her hand for several seconds before she shook it. "Amy," she replied plainly. The girl in front of her and her story rang a bell for some reason. "So how come you're outside while everyone else is inside?" she asked, taking a seat on a vacant swing herself.

"I could ask you the same thing," Diane replied with a small smirk.

"Let's say that I have...certain privileges. I came here with my team."

"Oh, I think my dad told me about you! You're with that team of mercenaries we hired, right?" Diane asked excitedly with a wide smile.

Amy found herself quite taken aback, not used to facing such excitement from anyone. Well, Alex smiled like that but she couldn't compare Diane's smile to his. While Alex's smile held something that made her think he was insane, with good reasons, Diane's smile was curious and friendly. "Yes, I am," she eventually answered. Then she wondered how Diane even knew that she and her team were mercenaries. Finally, it hit her: "Are you the director's daughter?" she asked.

Diane gave her a surprised look, but it quickly faded. "Yeah, I am," she answered.

"That explains why you can walk around freely," Amy remarked. A sheepish look crossed the girl's face.

"Uh, yeah. I don't think the other girls here like me because of it...not that I can say anything about it. I'm still learning how to speak properly and...well, you saw how it went," she muttered dejectedly. "Say...you came from the outside world, right?" Diane asked, looking at her hopefully.

Amy blinked in surprise. Outside world...those words brought back many of her awful memories, of her sitting in her dark room, chained to the wall and dreaming of escaping that hell and going to the outside world. She wondered why Diane looked so hopeful but then realized that the girl probably never set foot out of whatever facility she lived in. That realization made her feel very, very lucky.

"I got out only a year ago but yeah, I've been living there for a year now," Amy said with a fond smile as she remembered all the places she had visited with her team.

Diane was silent for several seconds, during which her expression became somewhat somber. "So you were in the old institute here? My dad told me it wasn't a nice place..." she trailed off from there.

Amy's face turned into a blank mask as she stared ahead at something only she could see. "No. It wasn't," she said in monotone. Diane bit her lower lip as she stared at Amy guiltily.

"Uhm..." Diane began, deciding to change the obviously uncomfortable topic. "So you've been outside. Can you tell me something about it?" she asked with a hopeful smile. "I don't have any friends here and I was hoping that..." She trailed off again, looking at the ground.

Amy looked at her and mentally shrugged. It wasn't as if she had anything better to do at the moment. Besides, she was a bit curious about talking with another one of her kind. Maybe it would be...educational. The girl seemed nice enough. "Yeah, why the hell not," she replied eventually, feeling quite awkward when the girl beamed at her. The girl was also smiling a lot.

* * *

><p>Ujiyaki Arimoro, thirty-four years old, tiredly stepped into his home after a long and tiresome night. When he became the director of the channel he worked in he wasn't expecting it to be so time-consuming. He also had the bad luck to have an overly annoying assistant.<p>

He worked all night long and now he finally returned home to get some much-needed sleep. He hanged his coat and walked into the living room, only to freeze. His couches had moved...

He also noticed a few smaller changes. First, he could remember that the wine bottle hadn't been on the coffee table when he'd left the previous night. The lamp was supposed to be off and he remembered that he emptied his ashtray before leaving. And the window was wide open...what the hell was going on? Something wet dripped on his nose and he flinched in surprise. He frantically wiped it away and looked up...

...only to see a grinning face. "Yo!"

Arimoro jumped back with a terrified cry, stepping back until his feet collided with the coffee table, tripping him and causing him to fall painfully to the floor. He lifted himself to a sitting position and fearfully looked at Japan's Most Wanted, who was currently standing upside down on his ceiling.

"Oh, sorry about that...it's kind of hard to drink while upside down, you know?" Alex said, awkwardly moving the glass to take a sip from the wine. "Gotta admit though, the look on your face was priceless."

"W-what do you want from m-me?" Arimoro fearfully asked, now remembering all the crap he had been getting during the last few weeks about from the murders of Kakuzawa's institute employees. What they didn't tell the public was that Alpha One was the prime suspect.

"Hm?" Alex asked, taking a drag on his cigarette, visibly enjoying how from his position the smoke was traveling downwards. "Oh, I'm just going tear out your inner organs and make a puppet out of your empty husk," he replied in all seriousness, at least until he started laughing at how quickly the man below him paled. "Just kidding, that's too disgusting even for me. Just sit down," he ordered with a wide smile, pointing at the couches.

Only then did Arimoro notice how the couches were placed. Two couches, facing each other with the coffee table set between them. He slowly took a seat in one of the couches and watched with a generous amount of wonder how Alex slowly and carefully descended down from his ceiling and carefully turning himself upright so he would not spill his wine.

While he knew quite a bit about this new Diclonius race, he had never seen one in person, much less their powers in action. What he was seeing so far both fascinated and terrified him, mostly because he had seen the footage of what happened in Kakuzawa's institute and knew that Alpha One had blocked a shotgun blast from point blank. Despite the cheerful demeanor, Arimoro knew that the young man in front of him could be a pure killing machine.

Alex calmly took the seat in front of the older man and took a sip from his wine while curiously looking at the man. Arimoro had to admit that with the way the young man was sitting and the outfit he wore, he displayed an image of classiness and style. At least until he opened his mouth. "Trouble at work?" he asked politely, "I was waiting here for almost an hour," he explained with a ridiculous pout.

Arimoro suppressed a shiver. Killers like Alpha One did _not_ pout. He blocked out the image he just seen and asked what was on his mind. "How did you get here?"

Alex gave the open window a lazy look. "The window, obviously."

Arimoro gave him a dubious look. "We're on the seventh floor," he deadpanned.

The answer was a look that clearly said "no shit." "Way to state the obvious..." he muttered.

"What do you want?" Arimoro demanded, having finally calmed down enough to add some force to his tone.

"I want to know what you know about the murders of Kakuzawa's unpunished employees," Alex demanded with equal force, the devil-may-care attitude completely gone, replaced by a serious aura.

Arimoro remained silent for several minutes, carefully weighing his options. On the one hand, he could refuse giving the valuable information and Alpha One would possibly kill him for it. On the other hand, he could give away the information, possibly get killed by the young man, and if not that, get in trouble later for divulging relatively classified information.

"No leads so far," he said eventually. "So far, you're the prime suspect."

Alex chuckled at that. "Figures. Why not blame everything on the most wanted man-killer in Japan?" he asked bitterly. "While I'm not sorry to hear that they are dead, I'm kind of disappointed that I don't know who did that. I would've congratulated on a job well done," he stated bitterly.

Arimoro frowned. "Innocent people are getting killed. If you know anything that might help the investigation..."

Alex chuckled darkly. "Trust me, despite what the judges might've decided, those guys were not innocent in the slightest," Alex explained with a dark smirk. "That bastard Aizawa, for example: He raped two of the girls after drugging them." How he knew this? Simple: Lee used to rant about the unethical behavior of some his coworkers. Some things stuck.

"You don't have proof," Arimoro disputed. "Without proof, there's..."

"Arimoro," Alex responded coldly, shutting the man up before he could add anything. "can you honestly call someone who calmly watched how prepubescent girls got shot with baseball-sized metal balls innocent? Someone who watched how prepubescent girls had their bones crushed after failing to stop such a projectile? Someone who coldly and calmly watched how their dead bodies were disposed as if they were trash? Someone who conducted inhuman experiments day after day after day after day? Can you call someone like that innocent?" By the end, Alex was growling his words.

"...No," Arimoro eventually replied, mostly out of fear.

"I wouldn't even call them humans, though that concept is overrated nowadays," he spat in distaste, gulping down the remnant of his wine before pouring himself more and lighting another cigarette. "Don't forget that I've been there. I've lived through that hell."

"I can't do anything about it. Not without proof."

"I don't want you to do anything. While I can assure you that I'm entirely sane on most days of the week, no one will take the word of a murdering non-human for granted. I'm not bloodthirsty either; in fact, the incident in Kakuzawa's facility was the first time I killed, so you can stop yourself from shitting in your pants," Alex said with a small smirk, sipping loudly from his glass.

"Why did you come to me?" Arimoro asked after a while.

"Oh, that's simple," Alex replied with a smirk that sent shivers down the older man's spine. "Your channel interviewed a good friend of mine. So...I'm here for an interview!" he exclaimed cheerfully, giving the biggest smile that was humanly possible.

* * *

><p>This was a somewhat new experience for her, just sitting and talking with someone and actually having <em>fun<em> while doing it.

Amy had to admit that Diane was somewhat fun to hang out with. Sure, she was very curious, bordering on annoyingly curious, but Amy couldn't really blame her for it. The girl was slightly younger than Amy and from what the girl told her, she spent most of her life in her facility and while the condition of her housing there — to Amy's astonishment — was phenomenal in comparison to the Kamakura facility, she was not allowed to go outside. Diane was honestly curious about how the outside world was.

Amy spent nearly two hours with Diane, just sitting on the swings, telling her of what she'd seen in different countries while Diane listened attentively, eyes wide and filled with wonder. Amy mentally snickered at the girls reaction when she described to her the taste of some of the more interesting foods she had eaten. The girl actually drooled!

In return, Diane told her about the facility they were in, the housing conditions, and how it was to live there. While the place still reminded her of a prison, with all the rules against freely wandering in the place, Amy had to admit that it was miles and miles better than what Kakuzawa offered.

They were so busy talking to each other they didn't notice Dicloni of various ages coming outside for their morning walk. They also didn't notice the somewhat curious glances some were sending Amy. Nor did they notice a pair approach them until they were practically in front of them.

Amy and Diane stopped talking and Amy looked at the newcomers. She blinked when she looked at them, thinking that something was wrong and that she was seeing double. Several blinks later, she realized that she was looking at twins.

She could tell that the two girls were slightly older than she was. For some unknown reason, they wore identical clothing. Amy had to admit that the clothes added to the creepy factor: They both had dark pink, almost purple, curly hair that reached their shoulder blades and they wore white t-shirts and jeans.

For some reason, Amy got a bad feeling from them, especially when she saw that Diane was looking quite worried. The two girls looked at them with smug and somewhat distasteful looks.

"Why are you with her?" asked the girl on the right.

Amy calmly raised an eyebrow. "What is wrong with me speaking with her?" she asked lowly, glancing at Diane, knowing the girl couldn't understand their conversation.

"She doesn't even know our language. We know about her though, what life she had before coming here," the one of the left said, somewhat angrily. "her father is the director, everything's easy for her and she doesn't even know what it's like for us."

Amy blinked. Since when such things even bother them? It seemed so...petty to hate someone just because they had a better life. These girls had something against Diane just because she had a father who actually gave a damn about her. She had been spared the inhuman experiments that many Dicloni in Japan went through. In that case, good for her.

Amy scoffed. "I can see that finally being somewhat free really fucked up your mind," she remarked cockily, earning herself confused looks. "So what if she had a better life?" she asked them, noting that their conversation has attracted the attention of several Dicloni girls that passed by. "The experiments are over so be happy about it and shut the fuck up," she said coldly.

The response was a pair of glares at her direction. "Who the hell do you think you are?" the right one asked angrily, a pair of vectors flailing and coiling around her like snakes, ready to strike. Amy took a glance around her, noticing that several guards were watching the scene anxiously, fingering their weapons. Then, she noticed a pair of guards that were walking to their direction.

Much to everyone's surprise, especially Diane's, since she didn't understand what they were even talking about, Amy grinned. While she never said anything about it, she was itching for a fight with another Dicloni ever since her relatively embarrassing defeat at Alex's hand. Sure fighting humans was fun an all but it just couldn't compare to the feeling you got when you were fighting one of your kind, who had the same abilities. The adrenaline and thrill you got from a fight with a Diclonius was irreplaceable. Also, Alex might've rubbed off on her, hence the grin.

Before anyone could even react, much less do anything about it, a vector collided with the right twin's stomach, sending her flying nearly twenty feet through the air until she landed in a heap, unconscious. The second girl watched her sister sail through the air with wide eyes and was unable to see the second vector enter her forehead. The girl twitched and dropped like a rock.

All of a sudden there was the sound of guns being cocked and frantic shouts to drop to the ground. Amy ignored those completely, unlike Diane who stepped away with a look of shock on her face, and scoffed, mostly out of disappointment.

"What a pushover," she muttered to herself. She wanted a fight, not knock someone out! If she wanted to do that she would simply go to Jack, who was almost used to her throwing him around like a rag doll.

Speaking of the devil...

"We just got here! Why the fuck do you get into fights so soon, especially when I'm not there to watch?" Jack exclaimed in annoyance as he walked over with Mike. The two of them were unsurprisingly the only guards who didn't have their weapons raised.

"You didn't miss anything," Amy said with a roll of her eyes. "I've had more trouble with humans."

"You know that this will make a bad impression, right?" Mike asked, despite already knowing the answer.

Amy glanced at the two unconscious Dicloni sisters in a bored manner, before glancing at the other Dicloni who watched from a distance. To her satisfaction a couple of them looked away when she looked at them. Good, that meant that the pecking order was already being established and hopefully, they would understand one important rule eventually: You don't fuck with Amy.

"Go ahead, see if I care," she eventually said, though the smirk on her face was said otherwise. She probably did it on purpose, for whatever reasons she had.

"Okay, as long as you don't kill anyone. We don't want problems with the director so please, don't fight anyone else today, okay? These guys have special ammo that you will have problems dealing with," Mike warned her quietly, getting a nod in reply.

"I can't promise anything. I'll defend myself if I have to. This would've escalated into a fight anyway," Amy said in a melancholic manner.

"Pfft, don't give me that bullshit," Jack said with a grin. "You enjoyed doing that."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said innocently, looking away shyly.

Mike chuckled at the scene. "Don't get into trouble. We'll solve this problem." He then sent a glance at Diane. "Glad to see you're making friends," he remarked with a smile before he turned around and left, dragging Jack after him who was speaking through a radio device, probably about placing the twins into the medical wing.

Amy stood there for several moments, watching two of her pseudo-family walk away until she felt a presence stand beside her. She looked at Diane with a small smirk, enjoying the look of admiration she was receiving.

"That was so cool..." the girl muttered in awe.

"It was nothing special," Amy replied, watching as a pair of guards picked up the twins and carried them to one of the buildings. "I know someone who is a lot stronger than me," she said, remembering Alex.

She would never admit it, but she began to somewhat admire Alex after fighting him and watching what he did during the escape from the institute. The way he controlled his vectors in the various ways that were both original and simple...the level of control he had over them left her thinking about what else he could do with them. She recalled the incident in the elevator where he collected all those bullets and created that pseudo-shotgun that tore everyone apart. She still felt giddy when she recalled that scene.

"How do you know how to fight like this?" Diane asked, her tone still holding an impressive amount of awe.

And the way the blood was smeared on his chest, the way it emphasized his muscles...she stopped there. Blinking away the thoughts before they could take her in a bad direction, she looked at Diane. "Uhm, did you say anything? Sorry, I got lost in thought..." she explained sheepishly.

"Where did you learn how to fight like that?" Diane asked with a shine in her eyes.

Amy blinked at the question. How could she even answer that? She knew how to fight because...she knew how to fight. Maybe the Dicloni in the UK didn't know how to fight or something? She figured that fighting for Dicloni was almost instinctive.

"You...don't know how to fight?" Amy asked, somewhat incredulously.

"Uhm...honestly, I don't use my vectors that well either. I only had to use them to pick heavy stuff up and move them around..." she trailed off, quite embarrassed.

If Amy didn't catch herself in time, she would've been gaping in disbelief. In her book, a Diclonius who couldn't fight was a dead Diclonius. No wonder those twins thought they could pick on the girl; she probably couldn't even protect herself! The vectors were a Diclonius' best friends; how did Diane not know how to use them?

Diane looked incredibly embarrassed as she looked at Amy, admiration in her eyes. "Can you...can you teach me something?" she asked shyly.

Amy grinned at the idea.

* * *

><p><strong>Hehehe, I love Amy. One of my favorite character that I created. Anyway, I hope that you will forgive me with the channel director thing. I actually have no idea what a channel director even does so...do correct me if I got anything wrong. I hope you liked this chapter, especially the Alex bit which I really enjoyed writing.<strong>

**Thank you all for reading and supporting this story! It makes me feel truly happy to know that you like this story and enjoy reading it. I want to thank everyone who left reviews and supported me from the previous story! Thanks guys, you're all awesome!**

**Thanks for reading this story, I appreciate getting constructive criticism, any suggestions, ideas and plain opinion on what you thought of the story. Heh, just point out any mistakes you can spot, it will help me in the long run! Leave them in a review if you want to. Thanks again, hopefully this time I will update sooner, since I pretty much made sure I wont have as many distractions as last time. :P Good Night! (Its 2am here...) Delvaro out!**


	5. Interviews

**Yes! Rejoice, for I am ALIVE! Yes, yes, I took WAY too long to update this. I'll try not to give any cheesy excuses (simply because I dont have any) other than the truth. Since it's my last year in this college/academy/whatever thingy I'm studying at, my workload was pretty much trippled. It's been only two months since it started and I already had to write five essays with the sixth one's dead line in only 3 days. I also have to memorize a bloody cursed poem and read it in 4 days. Yeah, I've been pretty busy and unfortunately, I barely had ANY time to write AT ALL. I havent even written any of those random oneshots and scenes I usually write when I bored from my other projects. I was pretty busy and whenever I had free time, I didnt have the drive to write anything. ;\**

**So, I have to say I'm sorry to make you wait for so long but at last, here is the new chapter, brand new, just finished.**

**About the chapter...well, I'm not sure about it. I think its adequate but I'm not sure. I'll let you be the judge of that.**

* * *

><p>"So..." Arimoro began, not sure where to start. Alex patiently waited while Arimoro set up all the needed equipment. Before Arimoro had become the director, he had worked with cameras quite often, so he owned several cameras of various models. At first he simply suggested using a voice recorder as it was easier and quicker, but Alex dissuaded him from that idea, stating that he wanted the people of Japan to "see how handsome their most feared criminal was" and that this way it would be undeniable that Alex really was Alpha One. The fact that a real interview with Alex would land Arimoro a lot of money was also a good incentive.<p>

Arimoro had filmed interviews more than enough in his career, so he was at ease.

When he was done setting up the equipment, he took a seat in front of Alex and placed a voice recorder between them. "You're ready?" he asked his interviewee.

Alex rolled his eyes and nodded with a shrug, calmly sipping his wine. Arimoro had to wonder how the young man still looked so sober. This was his second bottle, after all.

"Alright," he said, turning on the camera. "What is your name?" He wanted it to be authentic, so a confirmation of identity was optimal. Not that it was needed with all the footage of Alex that was floating around, but it made the interview look more professional.

"The name's Alex or Alpha One as everyone is insisting on calling me," he replied, wondering why he was asked such an obvious question. "Can we get on to the interesting questions please?"

"Alright, if you want to," Arimoro answered. "The question that was, and still is, bothering everyone: Is the Diclonius bound to replace the human? Is the human race doomed?" he asked, curious about the answer himself.

Alex scratched his chin before he answered. "Dunno," he replied simply. "I know for a fact that Dicloni can live peacefully with humans. I know a couple of my kind who live with humans and seem happy, and they never even think about harming them. I was living with humans for a long while and I never murdered anyone," said Alex.

"But you did," Arimoro corrected. "Kakuzawa's institute."

Alex shrugged. "He was an asshole and a sick bastard. Kinda hard calling that a murder. Perhaps mercy killing or doing the world a favor, dunno. Besides, he wanted to kidnap my girlfriend; otherwise, I would've left him alone."

"Girlfriend?" Arimoro asked, surprise evident in his voice.

"Yeah, girlfriend. You know, a guy and girl who hang out together and do various fun things together? Girlfriend and boyfriend," he explained, wondering why the older man was not familiar with the word.

"I know what that is. You have a girlfriend?"

"Hey, I'm awesome, handsome and charming and all that, but I'm not too awesome to have a girlfriend," he said, nodding to himself. An odd dreamy look appeared on his face. "Gorgeous thing, she is. Beautiful figure, that cute face of hers, enchanting legs and the finest ass I've ever se-"

"Who is she?" interrupted Arimoro quickly.

"Another Diclonius. Escaped shortly before I killed Kakuzawa. I decided to help her out. I know for a fact that it's quite shitty to go to the outside world after being stuck in a room for your whole life. A lot of unfamiliar stuff; you're bound to get into trouble. I decided to help her and teach her a bit. Things moved from there and before I know it, she's jumping my bones! Can't blame her for being unable to resist my nonresistant self," he added with a smug chuckle.

Arimoro was staring at him blankly, wondering how it was possible to get such a large ego. Alex, on the other hand, was quite aware that he would be sleeping on the couch for the next week, but then again, it was worth it.

"So you killed Kakuzawa because he threatened your girlfriend?"

"Mostly, yeah. Also because we were both being hunted at the moment. We were discovered and we didn't have a choice. Either he takes away my girlfriend, kills her, or kills us both...or I kill him and do everyone a favor. So I got caught on purpose, and from his own base, I attacked. I'm not keen on killing, but I can't say I regret my decision. I'd do it all over again if I had to."

"So what do you think about humans?" Arimoro asked, deciding to change the subject.

"Humans? Overrated concept, really. Hilarious as well. I watch TV and I just watch the people who walk down the street from time to time. I see a lot of humanity. Now that everyone knows about my kind everyone's suddenly united, spouting bullshit about themselves being human and us being non-human. It's utter crap I have to say. You people think you're perfect and that we're the bad guys because we kill humans and it's our supposedly destined goal. But has anyone paused to think why we have that goal?" Alex asked, no longer wearing a playful smirk. Instead, he now looked entirely serious and, more importantly, pissed.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Arimoro said at length.

"Think about it. If all humanity was constantly tortured and killed at birth, would you guys want revenge? If all of us, the Dicloni, suddenly started annihilating humanity, would you want revenge? Of course you would. Humanity is a petty race. Wars are starting over the smallest things, and all in all, people enjoy watching other people in pain. I've seen someone fall down, and the people with the man laughed at his misfortune, regardless of whether that man was in pain. You guys enjoy watching pain as long as it's not inflicted on you. Just look at the black people. How long had they been ridiculed and enslaved before they received the slightest bit of human rights? You hate whatever is different from you, be it skin color or horns.

"The Diclonius race is basically the same. I'm not surprised some Dicloni went on killing sprees. After being treated as something worse than shit, that idea has some merit. You would do the same, after all. We're not that different actually. Our base DNA is the same. The difference is meager when you look at the bigger picture," he continued.

"So you believe that humans and Dicloni are not that different?" Arimoro asked, not sure what he thought about Alex's opinion.

"Yup, exactly that. Just like you have murderers, assholes, degenerates and generally bad people, so do we have generally bad Dicloni. We have good people too, the same as you. Then again, I'm not a good example, considering my condition. But of course, because we have horns and some superior abilities to you, we are instantly monsters that deserve to be put down."

"Your condition?" Arimoro asked, his curiosity piqued.

"Yeah. I was born a human, you know," Alex replied with a shrug, clearly showing how much he cared for that.

"You were a human?" Arimoro asked incredulously. "But you're..."

"A freak?" Alex asked with a bitter smile.

"No, no. I meant to say that you don't have...horns," the man hastily replied, looking at the young man's hair.

Alex smiled sadly, raising a hand and trailing a finger across the bone that was hidden by his hair. "I had those once. Let's just say that some punks didn't like them and decided to remove them with a baseball bat. Lost one horn after that day and got rid of the other one shortly after since I felt stupid walking around with only one horn.

"As for me being human..." He paused, his expression looking frustrated for a second, then continued. "I had a sister. A twin sister. She was a Diclonius; I was a human. Because the Diclonius gene is more dominant in females I guess that only some parts transferred over to me since we we're twins and all that. I'm not a scientist so I wouldn't know for sure.

"I was an anomaly. I looked like a Diclonius, but I wasn't one. Physically, I possessed everything that a Diclonius did, but I didn't have the gene. My DNA is human. Kakuzawa took interest in that. In another 'dastardly plot' of his" — Alex made air quotes with his fingers, accompanied with a roll of his eyes — "he wanted to become the god of Dicloni and rule the world, or whatever he wanted to do with himself. Anyway, so he took me and by the time I was five, he cut open my cute little skull and started messing around with my brains until he miraculously managed to activate my abilities. So basically, I'm a human with Dicloni powers!" Alex exclaimed, his somber aura suddenly switching to a happy one, startling Arimoro.

"But alas, because Kakuzawa couldn't do the same procedure to himself and because the procedure itself wasn't an entire success — since I'll kill myself with prolonged vector use — he got pissed and dubbed me a failure and decided to make me into his own personal weapon. I got some training on how to deal with his more 'feisty' Dicloni but after several years a good friend of mine got me out of there at the cost of his own life," Alex said, frowning. "That friend was my 'caretaker,' responsible for keeping me alive. I figured he finally broke down there, which wasn't uncommon. Some just decided to kill themselves to escape the guilt. My caretaker decided to get me out of there, something which he succeeded at," Alex finished, somber again.

Arimoro in the meanwhile had to wonder if Alex, or Alpha One as he called him in his head, was bipolar. Alex switched from being happy to sad in the blink of an eye as he told his tale.

"Okay, enough about my sob story, ask me something else," Alex said, interrupting Arimoro's musing.

"What did you mean by your powers killing you?" he asked, wondering if he was unearthing Alpha One's great weakness and why Alex was even telling it in the first place.

"Dicloni can use their abilities as much as they want. Since my brain is still human, I can't. My brain has certain limits, and if I pass those limits, the strain on my brain can be dangerous. A normal Diclonius' limit is the amount of vectors they have, their vector range, and the weight they can lift. My limits are a bit...different. I have a lot more vectors than the average Diclonius and my range is bigger; however, the more vectors I use and the farther I reach the more strain is put on my brain. The results are not fun," he said with a cringe.

"What happens?"

"Well, if I would use _all_ my vectors and try to reach a target around fifty meters from me — something which I would never do — I guess my head would explode," Alex said with a shrug. "Not something I plan on doing, really. After the Kakuzawa fiasco I was in a coma for nearly two weeks."

"I see," Arimoro said at length, not sure how to feel about it. It did make him feel somewhat safer to know that Japan's Most Wanted had some limitations. "What do you think about the new Diclonius facilities?"

Alex perked up for a second before loudly snorting. "It's shit," he bluntly announced. "Though I can't deny that it's a lot better than what we had before, which is sad."

Arimoro raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What do you mean?"

The young man rolled his eyes as if to say he couldn't believe the man in front of him was so stupid. "Am I the only one who is reminded of ghettos?" he asked incredulously. "Seriously, today they are spewing that crap about building these places 'for our own safety,' but in a few years, after things calm down a bit, what's going to stop them from slowly eradicating us 'for the good of humanity?' Hitler tried the same against the Jews. We're not human in your eyes, so human rights don't apply to us. What's going to stop the guys in charge from annihilating a bunch of non-humans who are supposedly a threat to them?"

"That's not going to happen. We've learned from past mistakes," Arimoro countered, seeing the points Alex made but sure that something like that wouldn't ever happen.

To his surprise Alex smirked in a triumphant manner. "Like how you stopped Kakuzawa from doing his sick experiments?" he asked in a sweet tone.

Arimoro had to admit that the young man had a fine point.

"I doubt they would do it openly, but it's very possible. One rich guy with connections starts silently picking up a couple of Dicloni and doing experiments on them, and no one notices anything. Another group of anti-Dicloni folks starts hunting us down. Every unsolved murder is blamed on Dicloni. Before long, every single human fears and hates us and wouldn't mind us gone. Then some asshole with a hidden agenda starts to slowly take us out, one by one," Alex explained. "Like I said, we're not humans, so your rights have nothing to do with us. In the eyes of your law, we're nothing short of smart, dangerous animals that need to be put to sleep. Right now some people sympathize with us, for which I'm thankful, but after this mess calms down...?"

"So what do you suggest we should do?" Arimoro asked with a frown. The guy could criticize a lot but never said what should be done.

"I have no idea. I'm not a politician or a scientist. I can fix your car if you want me to, but that's all," he replied with a small chuckle. "I guess the best course of action would be to live and let live. Dump us on some island and let us live our lives in peace, but even for that scenario I see a lot that could go shitty fast," he said, shrugging.

"I see..." Arimoro said at length. He decided to change the subject. "Regarding the recent murders of the ex-employees of Kakuzawa's so-called 'Torture Chamber:' It might not be known to the public at large, but you are the prime suspect. What can you say about it?"

Alex laughed loudly, not a chilling laugh as Arimoro expected but a humorous belly laugh that made the ribs hurt. Alex quickly caught his breath and looked at his interviewer with a large smile. "I expected as much. Why not blame a known Diclonius on some unsolved murder? To tell you the truth, I didn't do it, nor do I know who did it. But they have my support, and if I meet them some day, I'll probably shake their hands and congratulate them on a job well-done."

"So you're supporting the murderer?" Arimoro asked with a scowl.

"In my eyes, it's a vigilante. Let me tell you about a very popular pastime of the scientists in the institute. We would be chained to a cold wall, completely naked, and then the good scientists there would launch 5 kilogram iron balls at us at bullet speed. We had to block them. Unfortunately, not all of us managed this. I went through this fun experiment at least three times a day and I missed the ball only three times. The first time crushed my rib cage, the second time shattered my shoulder, and the third time, for which I luckily managed to slow down the ball, cracked open my skull. They were also pretty gentle with me, since I was more...precious. Thank God for fast healing," he said, enjoying the somewhat disgusted look that was on Arimoro's face.

"When I was old enough, they started training me to fight against other Dicloni. When I started they put me against weak opponents, who were usually the ones who couldn't handle the regular experiments. I recall my first opponent was a young girl, about seven years old I think, who missed one of the balls. Her left arm was torn off entirely from her shoulder. She was still bleeding slightly since they hadn't bothered to change her bandages," he said bitterly, remembering the awful scene. It was the first time he had seen so much blood or someone so wounded. "I didn't kill her, something which I regret slightly. I guess it would've been mercy killing. I never faced the same opponent twice so I think they got rid of each one."

"Why didn't you kill her, if you don't mind me asking?" Arimoro asked awkwardly, his curiosity overriding his horror.

"Nah, I don't mind. I guess you can call it my foolish boyish naïvete. When I asked why they were doing those things to me, they replied by saying that I was a monster who would eventually kill them all. So I was determined to prove them wrong. A lot of good that brought me. I was five at the time."

"So you're supporting the murderer because in your eyes, the ones who worked in the institute were murderers as well," Arimoro concluded.

Alex nodded approvingly. "Precisely. It's pretty obvious from the method of killing that the killer is a Diclonius. Tearing someone apart to sand-sized pieces is pretty hard to do without vectors. Since they're a Diclonius, I can't really blame them. We all went through shit in that place. Some had it worse than others," he finished with a shrug.

"So what are your plans for the future?"

"My plans? Heh, beats me," Alex answered with a dubious shrug. "I guess I'll settle down somewhere, marry, get a dog named Rex and start working in a bank so I can buy a small, cute, blue SUV for my family and save money for my kids when they go to college," he said with a blank face, knowing fully that nothing of that sort would ever happen, especially the part with the children. Since Dicloni females were sterile, reproducing with Kitty was out of the question. He was unsure if he could have children himself so he wasn't planning anything anyway. The only way he knew of how Dicloni reproduced was by touching a human with a vector and passing the Dicloni gene to the human, whose child would be born as one. That's why he made sure to never touch humans with his vectors.

Arimoro looked rather surprised at the answer. "Really? From just one meeting with you, I was expecting something like world domination or being a celebrity," he said with a small laugh.

Alex laughed as well, deciding not to tell about his superhero ambitions. He still needed to find his arch-nemesis after all. "Nah, I get nervous in large crowds. Then again, my life will be boring if I decide to live quietly."

"Well, I don't have any more questions. Do you want to say anything else?"

Alex contemplated the question for a few seconds before he nodded, his face a mask of seriousness. "Yeah, I just want to say that most Dicloni are not to be feared. Yeah, some are pretty violent and wouldn't hesitate going homicidal on you, but a lot more would just prefer to be left alone. I can't blame them — us — for being like that. Imagine being treated as shit and being neglected, abused, and miserable since the day of your birth. I'm not surprised that some have hatred towards humanity. I don't doubt that some humans would hate humans if the same was done to them. But I personally know a few Dicloni who hold no grudges and are capable of living in peace with humans. A lot of us just...gave up and became what the bastards in the facility called us: monsters. Just...don't provoke our people and try to treat us equally and everything will be fine," he said, aiming his words to the camera.

Arimoro nodded and proceeded to turn off all the equipment. "Well, that was...enlightning," he commented.

"I guess," Alex replied with a shrug, getting up from the couch and staggering a bit. All the wine was making him a bit woozy.

"I heard about what was done there, but I've never heard a Dicloni talk about it," Arimoro admitted. He was also willing to admit now that Alpha One didn't seem so bad. "So you really killed Kakuzawa only because he tried killing your girlfriend?"

Alex chuckled at that. "Mostly, yeah. A good bonus was that it gave me a very good reason to help the other Dicloni. I considered just storming the place a long time ago but it would've been suicide. When I attacked the institute I...didn't really care if I would live or die, really," he said quietly. "He needed to be removed, that's what mattered."

"So why haven't you said anything in the interview?" Arimoro asked. As of this moment, the death of Kakuzawa seemed such a selfish accomplishment. The young man had practically admitted that he would've done nothing if his girlfriend hadn't been in danger.

"I don't want to be seen as some saint who saved his own people," he replied, contradicting his visions of superhero grandeur. "I'm just some anomalous freak. A prototype of a human with Dicloni powers. Nothin' more than that," he finished with a shrug. "Besides, the media is after my ass, don't need more of it. I have enough attention as it is," he added, smirking.

"I see." It seemed that Alpha One simply didn't want the PR involved with his accomplishment. Why he preferred to be seen as some selfish asshole was beyond Arimoro. "Then why did you come to me?"

"Why not?" Alex shot back, lighting another cigarette. "I think it's about time I made my opinion known, since I'm a celebrity and all that. If I don't speak up for the Dicloni and give my opinion, who else will?" he asked, a sad tone to his voice. "As of right now, the Diclonius race is too dangerous to be allowed in public. Everyone is being picked up and dropped into those new facilities. Other than me, I know of four Dicloni who live in the human side of the world, but they won't do anything. They're not going to risk whatever safety and peace they have just to say their opinion. I, on the other hand, am insane enough to do whatever I want."

"That's true," Arimoro admitted. He hadn't heard of anyone coming to the Dicloni's defense. There were sympathizers, of course, but no one had taken a fully active role. "So you're planning to be their defender?"

Once again, Alex laughed out loud. "Me? When you have a known murderer representing you, you don't exactly make a good impression," he said with a smirk. "Besides, I just told you I don't want the publicity. I just wanted to make my opinion known and who knows, someone might just grow the balls and do something about Dicloni rights."

"Perhaps someone will," Arimoro replied, truly hoping that someone would do something. "In that case, thanks for the interview," he added, a grin forming on his face, the knowledge that this interview would bring him a good amount of money being enough to cheer him up.

Alex instead, much to Arimoro's surprise, bowed in a very formal manner. "Thank you for your time, Arimoro-san. It was kind of you to accept my request," he said, ignoring the fact that he basically scared the man shitless and then sort of threatened him with his presence into the interview.

With that, Alex turned around and walked over the window but paused as he climbed onto the windowsill. "Oh, and please don't edit anything out of what you recorded. It kinda defeats the purpose of me coming here," he said with a grin. "Thanks again. I might be seeing you in the future." Before Arimoro could reply, he dropped out of the window.

Arimoro immediately panicked and rushed to the window. Looking down, he expected to see the young man plummeting to his death, or already down and splattered on the pavement. What he didn't expect to see was the calm streets, no commotion, no screams and yells, and more importantly, no plummeting or dead body. He looked around hastily, trying to find Alpha One but with no success. As far as he knew, the man had vanished.

Up on the roof of the building Alex was walking away, quietly cackling to himself and nearly crying tears of mirth. "I probably looked so awesome doing that..." he said to himself between silent laughs.

* * *

><p><em>The room was bland. White, featureless walls, a door, and a single one-way glass window. She herself was chained to the wall, silently waiting for the bloody – in more ways than one – tests to begin. The plan had already been set in motion but she still had to be incredibly careful. She had already foreseen all the possible complications and knew what to do in order to avoid them. She was spending most of her time in a dark room, chained to a wall. Under these circumstances, planning and thinking was all she could do.<em>

_The bastard behind the glass told her to prepare herself. She replied with her best glare. The bastard replied with the iron ball, aimed right at her face. She easily stopped it._

_She knew how it went. They would start by launching the balls at a low velocity but would gradually increase the speed, shooting them faster and faster, sometimes even increasing the size of the projectile itself. She'd been through this countless times._

_Now, her plan relied on it._

_After several minutes they were getting closer and closer to her recorded limit. 310Km/h._

_As soon as the dubbed 'Bastard' announced the next speed she prepared herself. She knew that if she screwed up here, she might be locked up for a long time. The best case scenario would be death. Other than success that is._

_She saw the projectile flying at her at and braced herself, moving her vectors to intercept the iron ball, but not to stop it. She had to make this believable or the whole plan was a failure. She had to be very careful in her actions or else it would be too painful._

_The vectors intercepted the projectile but didn't stop it. Instead, they slowed it down and carefully guided it away from her face. Unfortunately, she still had to be hit. At the last second, when the projectile was inches away from her, she slowed it down with all her strength. She knew that she could deflect it away from her and quite possibly stop it if it was her intention.. She managed to slow it down by more than half of its speed._

_Unfortunately for her, it was still fast enough to do harm. It smacked against her should and she could easily hear the muffled but loud 'pop' that accompanied the hit, quickly followed by a nauseating wave of pain._

_She couldn't help but release a pained cry but fought through the pain and reached out with whatever remain of her concentration to keep the iron ball close to her. She quickly closed her eyes and calmed her breathing, allowing her head to hang there lifelessly._

_After several seconds the worst part followed. She expected it, knew it would come and prepared her best for it. She bit her lip as she heard the telltale sound of the cannon unleashing another projectile and the sound of something moving through the air, fast. The iron ball, much, much slower this time, hit her in the stomach and she reigned in the scream of pain that nearly escaped. She remained silent, unresponsive._

_She could taste the metallic taste of blood, seeping out from her torn lip but didn't dare to look up at all. A few silent seconds followed and no projectile followed. She would've sighed in relief if she hadn't known it would ruin her plan._

"_That's enough," a voice announced._

_The door opened after several minutes and a guard with a long pole entered the cell. He quietly and carefully collected the balls from the room, using the pole to reach the ones closer to her. She would've laughed if she knew it would end badly. Her plan was working so far._

_From the corner of her eye she saw the pole reaching for the iron ball that was at her side. It was time. She had to act quickly and without hesitation._

_Without any warning for the guard, the ball suddenly flew through the air at breakneck speed and hit him squarely in the face with a wet sound. The guard dropped lifelessly to the floor, the iron ball imbedded into his face, before he was quickly dragged over to the chained Dicloni. All this happened in the span of two seconds. A second later, a small key-chain rose from the guard's pocket right into the hands of the waiting Dicloni. Three seconds later, the chains were dangling from the wall and the young girl was free._

_She shakily rose to her feet and prepare to run to the unlocked door when a familiar sound stopped her short in her tracks. She turned to look at another iron ball flying straight at her, much faster than her limit. Her vectors rose to the challenge but utterly failed in stopping the large bullet. The ball hit the floor but ricocheted from it and hit her right in the leg, lifting her off the ground, head over heels._

_She landed painfully on her head and looked through bleary eyes at the glass which held the 'Bastard,' who was currently laughing at her. Mocking her._

"_Ahh, what is it, the fifth time now? Haven't you learned to give up yet? I believe we should strengthen security." He laughed again. "You should be honored. You are our most rowdy specimen. No one has forced us to upgrade our security measures so much as you."_

_She would've growled at him, or done something else, whatever she could do, but her words were caught in her throat when another iron ball was shot from the cannon. Everything went black after the projectile hit her._

* * *

><p>Kitty woke with a gasp. She lay in her futon for several minutes, calming her breath, before she sighed. It didn't happen as often as before, but the nightmares still plagued her. Usually they were dreams of her years in captivity. Those weren't that bad. Other times, she dreamed about the things they did to her. Like this time, she dreamed about one of her failed escape attempts.<p>

It reminded her of how she got her own name. Kitsune. Alex often told her that the name was very uninspired and that he could come up with something better. That was why he preferred to call her Kitty, a name she'd grown fond of herself.

She had always tried to escape using deception. Among the things she'd done were faking test results, faking unconsciousness, using the element of surprise, and even playing dead once. Unfortunately, pretty much none of them worked, save for the attempt which resulted in her escape. Her first success.

The nightmares came less often now. Usually she didn't dream at all. Other times she dreamed of doing something with Alex. She sighed dreamily, not believing her luck. Who knew that once she would escape she would meet someone like Alex?

Speaking of Alex, why was it so cold? She reached with her hand to pat the spot where he would cuddle with her, but her hand met empty space. Raising an eyebrow, she turned to face him but only met the empty side of their futon. She quickly glanced at the clock and saw that it was still the early hours of morning: too early for Alex to wake up. He officially refused to move a muscle before noon.

Grumpily she climbed to her feet and staggered out of their room, moving down to the kitchen, wondering what the special occasion was for Alex to wake up so early. Was there a holiday she forgot about? Or some obscure anniversary of his?

She entered the silent and empty kitchen. If he wasn't there, he wasn't in the house at all.

She groaned in frustration, cursing Alex for escaping while everyone was asleep. With another frustrated sigh, quickly followed by a yawn, she walked back to her room, resolving to banish Alex from their room the following night. Hopefully he had a good reason to be doing whatever he was doing.

* * *

><p>Amy blinked and blinked again, not caring that her mouth was actually hanging open. She wasn't quite sure what she felt, since she felt a lot of things at that particular moment. This was beyond sad. It was tragic.<p>

Diane couldn't even throw a punch. A vector punch. Which was something so utterly simple, Amy felt embarrassed just witnessing it. Oh, Diane could use her vectors, but they were weak. Amy blocked all four of them with just two of her own. At that moment she began to question her decision to teach the girl.

It wasn't as if Diane couldn't use her vectors. What she lacked was coordination, the ability to control them separately to a needed degree, and creativity, something Amy had picked up from Alex. From what Amy saw so far, Diane was very good at flailing her vectors around but other than that...not much else.

It was a sad sight for Amy. The fact that she could defeat Diane with just three to four moves made the whole scene quite pathetic.

Amy prided herself for what she was. In her eyes, she was a Dicloni warrior. Since she spent her childhood in the institute, she learned that in order to survive, she would have to know how to fight and protect herself. Sometimes the scientists would pit Dicloni against each other in the institute to see how Dicloni fight — to see what makes them tick, so to say. Amy survived five of those so-called experiments. That's why she was spared the lethal experiments. The only reason she was alive right now was because she knew how to fight. She knew this, and she prided herself for it.

To see a fellow Diclonius who didn't know how to fight made Amy feel as if she were watching someone who was broken. As if Diane was missing a limb or something.

"Okay, okay, stop!" Amy ordered loudly after hopping back past Diane's vector range. They were currently outside with no one to bother them other than the guards, most of whom lost any interest after realizing the Dicloni weren't trying to kill each other. Since Diane was the director's daughter and Amy was a sort of employee, they had certain privileges, such as being exempt from curfew and not being stuck in their rooms. They could go out whenever they wanted, which was very, very good in Amy's book.

Diane stopped in her tracks, retracting her vectors as she rested her hands on her knees, panting.

Amy sighed, wondering how she should phrase her opinion. The girl obviously looked up to her, and she feared that voicing her thoughts would crush the inexperienced girl. Eventually she shrugged. She wouldn't be able to help Diane if she sugarcoated it.

"I'll be honest with you," Amy began, getting a hopeful nod from Diane. "You suck," she said bluntly, causing Diane to look at her with an injured expression. "You suck so much that I actually lost interest in fighting you, which is really the first time that ever happened to me."

Diane looked down at her feet and seemed like she was seconds from bursting into tears. Amy looked away and sighed before she relented. What kind of warrior would she be if she wasn't even able to instruct an inexperienced member of her race? "But..." she said at length, wondering if she would regret her decision, "I think I can help you, somehow."

"Really?" Diane asked, her extremely hopeful look startling Amy slightly. "What do I need to improve?"

At this question Amy sighed once again. She hoped she wasn't developing a habit. "Everything. You lack coordination, speed, strength, stamina and most importantly, creativity," she explained, counting with her fingers. "They're all easily trainable. I think I can teach most of the stuff I know," Amy answered.

"Really?" Diane repeated. Amy had to wonder how many times she had heard the girl say that word so far. At that moment the girl tackled Amy with a hug, who found herself in a very awkward position.

"Yes, really. Now let me go," she growled and was immediately released by the embarrassed girl. "It won't be instantaneous but I'm sure that with enough time I can turn you into a fine fighter," she promised. Perhaps she could rope Diane into helping her defeat Alex. She could already imagine the epic battle that would ensue if she could have her way.

"Good morning," a voice greeted. Amy turned around and recognized Director Burns from when her group had first arrived.

"Dad!" Diane exclaimed happily, enveloping her father in a hug that he gladly returned.

"Hey there!" he greeted her back, ruffling her hair a bit, an action which made her pout cutely.

Amy simply rolled her eyes at the familial scene, slightly annoyed by it.

"Sweety, do you mind if I have a few words with your new friend?" he asked Diane. She shook her head.

Burns started walking away, sending Amy a glance which told her to follow him. Amy quickly caught up with him and they slowly walked together.

"What do you want?" she asked bluntly, having always hated suffering through long conversations when she could've just avoided them altogether.

"Do you mind if I ask you what are you doing with my daughter?" he asked her in the same tone. "I'm glad that my daughter is making friends, but I want to know that what you're doing with her won't harm her."

Amy scoffed at that. "I'm just teaching her to fight. I don't know what you've been doing with her, but she would be hopeless in a fight," she said with a frown.

"Why would she need to fight? I made sure there wouldn't be a need to fight anything here," he replied with a frown that mirrored Amy's.

Amy rolled her eyes, not believing his stupidity. "The other Dicloni are not fond of her. I think they hate her, actually. She has a nice, sheltered life and a loving father who happens to be the director, while their lives were total, utter shit. I think you can see where I'm going with this," she said tonelessly.

Burns remained silent for a few seconds before he replied, "And you think that teaching her to fight will solve her problems? Won't it just provoke the other Dicloni? Diane hasn't been involved in a fight since she arrived."

"I'm not saying she will be in any fights," Amy said, calming him down without meaning to. "I'm still here and I don't mind having a fight or two. Actually I'm all for it," she finished with a wicked smirk.

"Then why do you need to teach her how to fight?" he asked, still frowning. He had always made sure his daughter wouldn't be treated like a monster or be turned into a killing machine. He wasn't going to stop protecting her now.

Amy sighed at his ignorance but decided against voicing her frustration. After all, he was her boss, in a way. "Look, it's like a condom. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it," she blandly said, feeling proud of herself for quoting something she had heard from a movie.

The director raised an eyebrow at those words, wondering whether he should be disturbed that a girl about his daughter's age was making such a reference, despite the fact that she actually made a lot of sense, or be worried that his little girl was making friends with such a girl. "I...see," he finally said, unsure of what else he could say.

"Good," Amy said with a nod. "Your daughter will be safer that way and I'll try not to hit her too hard. Don't worry, soon enough she will be able to kick ass without any problems at all. She won't even need me to kick ass," she added with a snicker. "Is that all?"

Burns wasn't sure if he should worry or be happy. On one hand, Diane's new friend seemed too eager to fight. On the other hand, her new friend seemed capable of defending his daughter. He nodded to her and watched her return to Diane and immediately bark out an order to prepare herself. He silently watched as Amy jumped and weaved between attacks that he was incapable of seeing, commenting on ways she could improve or pointing out what she was doing wrong. At least he wouldn't have to worry about any boys harming her in the future, if it would ever come to that.

He just hoped that Amy wouldn't corrupt his daughter too much.

* * *

><p><strong>Heheh! Yes, the chapter is finished now. If you noticed, the chapter's longer than usual, so consider it a bonus for the long wait. It's not as long as I would've liked, but be happy that you get a chapter.<strong>

**I hope you recognized where the quote Amy used comes from, and if you do, you get a cookie!**

**Now, I have no idea when I'll be able to update again, I still have the other stories I need to update after all! (:O) And I'm unsure when the awful workload will lessen. Hopefully in a month or so, since its the whole holiday season. Be assured though, I'll update it EVENTUALLY. Yeah, thats not exactly reassuring, but its a promise! I wont just...disappear. *cough cough*.**

**So yeah, thanks for reading this story, and this chapter in particular. I'm very glad you like this story and I'm flattered every time you compliment it. It felt great that one of my readers actually PM'd me to ask where the hell I was! So yeah, thanks for reading my story! I will gladly accept constructive criticism, ideas, suggestions and just plain opinions. Dont stay in the shadows! Come into the light and leave a review! Dont stray into the dark side of the reviewers! Leave a review, it makes me feel awesome (not that I'm _not_ awesome to begin with). Thanks again, and until next time!**


	6. Results

**Okay, I'm back! Now, after the constant hangover that I suffered since new year's eve and christmas (its a week AFTER new year's eve. Dont ask me, it's a russian thing), the annoying relatives I had to meet, endure through the urge to punch several of their faces in...but i endured. I managed to get through the holidays without killing any of my annoying relatives, so you ought to congratulate me! Then again, I did break my little brother's arm by accidently sitting on it, so...**

**Moving on,I finally wrote this new chapter. It was in my head for the better part of a month but no matter what, I dont feel like its one of my best chapters. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it anyway! It's not as long as I would like but It's enough for now. So, without any further delays, enjoy the new chapter!**

**Oh, before I forget, I want to wish a Merry chistmas and happy new yearto all my readers and those who liked the story! :D**

* * *

><p><em>Sometimes I wish I could see the future. Then, half of the stupid stuff I do wont blow up in my face. I find it actually sad that six out of ten things I do end up with awful (for me) results. For example that one time when Kaede was ranting about the mess I left in the kitchen after I cooked some meals...I simply had to respond with sarcasm and my exceptionally witty remarks. Those knives nearly lopped off my head...<em>

_But then again, I doubt I actually want to see the future. There wont be any more surprises left for me that way. My existence will become even more boring! It would be fun for a few weeks but then it will lose it's fun. And then, would I actually be where I am today if I could see the future? Would I have helped Kitty if I knew that helping her would end up with my house exploding, killing Kakuzawa and being on the run later? I'd love to say yes, but you can never be sure._

_The point is, my luck sucks. If I had known what doing that interview will bring me, I think I would've scrapped that idea._

_Maybe._

_- Alex, Alpha One_

* * *

><p>"Would you calm down? You're making me dizzy and I think you already created grooves on the floor," Kaede finally snapped after seeing Kitty walk in circles for over an hour. "I know that he's stupid sometimes but he can take care of himself."<p>

Kitty stopped in her tracks, much to Kaede's relief and looked at the older woman. "I have an awful foreboding feeling. As if something exceptionally stupid was happening without me knowing about it and now it will lead to the destruction of the world and I was the only one who could stop it before happening," Kitty declared in monotone.

Kaede blinked. "Okay...that was...I think you're exaggerating," Kaede finally replied.

Kitty shook her head at that. "No. I'm not. Every time Alex leaves the house for over an hour, something bad happens. We're likely to see something on the news soon enough. Hopefully it wont be about some massive destruction caused by a particular idiot," she said with a sigh.

"Just calm down. You're just overthinking things," Kaede told her. "Alex is, surprisingly, smarter than that."

"Hey!" Nana called to them from the other room, catching their attention with the urgency in her voice. "You gotta see this!"

Exchanging glances they walked over to Nana to see her pointing at the TV screen, which happened to show the afternoon news.

"...as I already said, apparently one of Japan's most wanted, the Dilonius Alpha One, earlier this day had an interview with the director of our channel. We will air the official interview tonight, after the evening news," the newsman said.

There was a tense moment of silence where all three females simply stared at the screen.

"I'm taking back my words. He's an idiot," Kaede broke the silence and left to the kitchen.

"I'm going to kill him," Kitty declared with dedication.

* * *

><p>Alex shivered uncontrollably as he walked down the street. "I got the sudden feeling that I'm going to be mutilated tonight," he murmured to himself.<p>

Lowering his hat even lower he turned around the corner to approach a very familiar building. So far no one recognized him, thankfully. Then again, he still got some curious looks, mostly from his fancy suit and the sunglasses he wore.

Turning into the alley he casually walked to the back door of the building and fished out a small key from his pocket. Entering inside he was immediately greeted by sounds of tools and some shouts. Smiling to himself, he locked the door behind him and placed the key back to his pocket. He decided that he should've visited earlier and not a year after disappearing.

The first thing he saw were several of his ex-coworkers working on a car and soon after that, his ex-boss and pseudo-family, who was talking to a client.

"Oi!" he called over the noise. "Jirou!" Apparently, Alex startled Jirou as he jumped in surprise and quickly turned around to see who called him, only to gape in surprise. With a small smirk Alex pulled off his stocking cap and revealed his unruly black hair, which intensified his surprised face expression. He spread his arms wide and looked at Jirou with a grin. "Where's my damn hug?"

Unfortunately, everyone else noticed him as well. The other employees were gaping at him too and the client was pointing a finger at him, extremely pale and was stuttering something incomprehensible.

Alex raised an eyebrow as he locked eyes with the client. "Boo," he said in monotone. "I will eat you now," he said. The client paled even further, making Alex wonder how it was possible to become whiter than milk, before he quickly took several steps back before he completely fled the place. He watched as he fled and once the man was out of sight he broke into laughter, not expecting the man to actually flee in terror.

"Alex?" Jirou asked carefully.

"No, I'm Santa," Alex deadpanned. He pouted when he saw Jirou frown. He never took jokes well.

"Uh, not that I dont like you're surprise visit, but what are you doing here? Aren't you a fugitive?" Jirou asked slowly, as if he was talking with an infant.

Alex frowned at that. "I seem to recall something like that..." he paused, scratching his chin. "Nah, doesn't ring a bell," he finished with a smile.

"Oh...okay," Jirou said in length, clearly confused.

"Meh, doesn't matter. How are you? I haven't seen or heard a word from you for a year now!" Alex exclaimed.

"Eh...nothing much, really. After all the mess with the reporters stalking me things calmed down and everything was...well, normal," Jirou said, scratching his head. "So, is it true about..." he trailed off, looking uneasily at Alex.

"Ah," Alex said in understanding. A wrench and a screwdriver slowly rose from a nearby toolbox and floated towards Alex, where they started to orbit around his head. "Yeah, most of it," he replied, looking at Jirou intently. Jirou for his part took a step back, looking uneasily at the orbiting tools, clearly unnerved.

The male dicloni sighed, seeing that Jirou was uncomfortable with it, and returned the tool to their place. He couldn't really blame the man to begin with. One day he finds out that his apartment blows up, soldiers are looking for him and then he hears that he murdered a lot of armed soldiers and eventually Kakuzawa himself and soon after that, he finds out that Alex wasn't even a human. Alex never told him anything about that so who should he believe?

"Look, I know you're uncomfortable right now," he began somberly. "but regardless of everything I did, I'm still the same person. Sorry about not calling you or anything."

Jirou looked at him for several seconds before his posture visibly relaxed. "Nah, don't worry about it," he said as he approached him and slapped Alex on the back of his head so hard that he nearly fell off his feet. "And the next time you secrets like that be sure to tell me about it before things start blowing up!" he roared at him.

Alex laughed sheepishly as he rubbed his aching head. "Yeah, I'll be sure to notify you next time."

Jirou glanced at the other employees before he snapped at them. "What are you standing there for? Get to work!" he roared again and the guys quickly scattered away to resume their work, though they still sent Alex careful glances. "Come on, lets go to my office, you have a lot of things to tell me," Jirou said to Alex as he walked off to his small office.

And so, for nearly an hour, Alex sat there with Jirou, telling him about everything that happened, how he escaped from the institute, how life was on the streets, how he met Jirou, what happened after his apartment blew up, what happened in the institute, though he kept some details to himself, like where he lived and with who.

He also made sure to tell Jirou to watch his interview, something which surprised Jirou greatly. "Why would you give an interview?" Jirou asked incredulously.

"I'm an important person now, a famous one. I need to give my opinion on something, right?" Alex replied, making Jirou wonder if he was serious or not.

Soon enough, Alex decided it was time to leave before the police would arrive to arrest him. "So what will you do now?" Jirou asked curiously now.

"For now? Go home and stay low, like usually. Though I have a horrible feeling that I will be mauled and torn to shreds when I get back," he muttered the last part.

"Well, good luck with that. You didn't need to scare my clients by the way. I don't doubt that he called the cops," Jirou added with warning.

"Meh, its publicity for you. Tell them that I arrived on a UFO or something and you can get yourself a fortune," Alex said with a shrug. "I'll be sure to visit you in the future, though I wont tell you when. Be sure to tell your wife I said 'Hi' and tell your brother than I'm sorry I got him house blown up!"

"Yeah, yeah, get out of here," Jirou said with a small smile as he watched Alex disappear beyond the back door.

Ten minutes later the police arrived, along with a news crew.

* * *

><p>"O-o-ow..." Alex whined as he lied face down in the garden with a furious Kitty standing over him. "The suit was new too..."<p>

"Just shut up!" she snapped as she stomped his head deeper into the ground. "Why is it that every time you leave the house I'm seeing something related to you on the news? Don't you realize that the reason we tell you to stay here is to make the people forget about you? And what do you do? You do exactly the opposite!"

Alex rolled onto his back to look her in the eyes, ignoring the fact his position afforded him a full view of what was under her skirt. "Don't worry! Nothing will happen. It's not like I have anyone our address or anything else that might tell them where we are," he whined.

Apparently Kitty saw that his gaze was constantly wavering between her eyes and up her skirt. She leaned down to his face with a murderous scowl. "I'm this close," she showed him the tiny space between her index finger and her thumb, "to cutting off your legs to keep you in here."

Alex gulped, unsure but hoping that she wasn't serious. "Yes Ma'am!"

She looked at him for several seconds before nodded and removed her leg from his chest. "Good," she said as she left to enter the house. Alex caught sight of Kaede, who was watching the scene with a smug look on her face, apparently enjoying seeing Alex getting thrown around like a ragdoll.

"Why am I surrounded by women who seem to enjoy my suffering?" he asked no one in particualar.

"What was that?" Kitty snapped, glaring at him.

"Nothing Honey, nothing," he replied, still unmoving.

As soon as he entered the house he was stopped by a furious-looking Kitty. Before he could actually do anything she grabbed him a vector and hurled him into the garden, where she proceeded to throw him around, smash him into the ground a few times and stomp on him around a dozen times for good measure. He knew better than to fight back, because then Kitty will only get madder or worse, Kaede might join in to help her fellow female. So the only thing he could do is endure.

He decided to let Kitty cool down for a bit and so he decided to stay on the ground. He was body was aching as well. Besides, the clouds were interesting today.

The memories of what he said during the interview surfaced and gulped, wondering what Kitty will say about that, or more accurately, do about it. Maybe it would be smart to get out of the house during the evening, but then Kitty will only get madder.

He sighed in resignation. Either way he will have to suffer.

With a groan and a wince from his aching bones he got up to his feet and sluggishly walked to the house. He might as well get some decent sleep before he was murdered by Kitty.

* * *

><p><em>She backflipped over the low vector strikes and nimbly landed on her feet, retaliating with two vectors that disrupted Alex's attack, forcing him to dodge to the side, exactly where she wanted him.<em>

_As soon as Alex landed he was intercepted by a pair of Amy's vectors. Unfortunately he manage to dodge the brunt of the attack by slamming his own vectors into the ground, pushing himself into the air. Unfortunately for him, one of her vectors still clipped him by his feet and it sent him careening to the side., where he landed painfully._

_Amy charged on, raising her vectors and slamming them on Alex, but he simply rolled along on the ground at amazing speeds to get away from the attack, pushing himself out of the way with his own vectors. Just as she was about to crush him he changed directions, sending himself straight at her._

_Before she managed to do anything he was already upon her, slamming his head into her chin. With a pain-filled yelp she tumbled back and rolled away and just in time as the ground that she landed on erupted with several deep gouges._

_She quickly regained her footing, much faster than Alex anticipated, and sent all her vectors into the male dicloni. He managed to deflect all of them but one, which slammed deep into his stomach, knocking out the air from his lungs and sending him to the ground. Amy didn't slow down to celebrate her successful attack but simply charged on. Grabbing hold of his leg, she raised him into the air and quickly, with all her might, slammed him back into the ground. She did it again and once again. After the third time he wasn't moving, much to her glee. With a yell of victory she threw him into the wall, where a spiderweb of cracks spread from the point of impact._

_Amy stood there, panting, trying to catch her breath as she looked at her beaten foe. She slowly approached him, limping from a solid hit he landed on her left leg. Once she was close enough she could see the injuries she inflicted in great detail. He was bleeding from a gash on the side of his head, painting half of his face in red. His shirt was mostly torn and the left side of it was soaked in red from a small gash she inflicted on his ribs. He was also covered in dirt and sweat. She herself didn't come out of the fight unscathed. Beyond her injured leg she had a torn lip from his headbutt, a few broken ribs and a small cut on her shoulder. Her right sleeve was entirely missing, along with a good portion of the shirt, revealing one perky breast._

_As she watched his unmoving body she slowly started to smile until not before long she was outright grinning at the scene. If she wasn't so exhausted she would've probably laugh her ass off and break into a victory dance. After so long she finally managed to beat the bastard!_

_Unfortunately, her celebration was cut short when a single vector erupted from the ground, caught her by the throat and slammed her face-first into the ground. She released a muffled groan filled with pain as the vector pulled her up, where she saw Alex slowly rising to his feet, grinning at her before she was slammed into the ground again._

_She blacked out for a few second after the second impact but quickly regained control of her senses and re-summoned all her vectors to fight back. Unfortunately, that did nothing to help her as she was slammed against the wall, all her limbs and vectors pinned down and held tightly, leaving her defenseless._

_Amy angrily watched as Alex slowly limped toward her, still victoriously grinning, and when he finally was right in front of her he grabbed her neck. She fought back against the hold but to no avail. She watched him with as he pulled her head slightly towards him as he leaned himself. She felt his other hands move over her body, pausing for a moment over her revealed breast before it continued up until it stopped on her cheek. When his face was right in front of her she closed her eyes. She could sense the smell of blood and sweat coming from the man in front of her and felt his hot breath on her lips, which only drew closer and closer until..._

"Hey! Wake up!"

Amy awoke with a surprised squeak, nearly falling off the couch as she jerked awake. She blinked in confusion and realized that she was in Diane's room, lying on Diane's couch, with Diane staring at her oddly.

"Huh?" was her intelligent response.

"Uhm, you fell asleep and then you started groaning and...uh, moaning all of a sudden so I, uh, woke you up," Diane said slowly, looking at Amy curiously. "Was it a bad dream?"

Amy still stared at Diane blankly before her mind registered what the girl said. As soon as her brain finally started working she groaned to herself. Not even in her dreams she could manage to defeat that smug bastard! She vowed to herself that she would request a rematch the next time she would meet him. The last part of the dream though was...unexpected. Very unexpected. She glared at Diane with a red face, who flinched at her gaze, for interrupting her sleep, and more importantly her dream.

"Yeah, it was a bad dream," she finally said with a sigh. "Damn smug bastard," she muttered under her breath, not loud enough for anyone to hear.

"Oh, okay," Diane trailed off before she looked at Amy curiously. "What was the dream about?"

Amy's brain inadvertently returned to the last moments of her dream and her face reddened as a result. "Uh, fighting," Amy said, not exactly lying.

"Ah," Diane looked at her suspiciously. "Are you sure?" she asked her with narrowed eyes, noting the heavy blush on Amy's face.

"Yes. Very," Amy said with a nod.

"If you say so..." Diane trailed off before she perked up. "Oh, I woke you up because Alpha One is going to be on TV!" she said excitedly.

This caused Amy to perk up, both in confusion and surprise. "What?"

"Well, he's not going to be on TV actually, its just an interview but its recent. It should start in about an hour or so. Didn't you say you met him?"

Amy proudly puffed up her chest. "And fought him too!" and then she deflated. "And horribly lost."

"Eh? You never told me that!"

"Its...uh, quite embarrassing. I don't like talking about that," Amy said, looking away. "He utterly kicked my ass."

"But...you're tough! I cant even hit you!" Diane exclaimed in surprise. Amy gave her a blank stare, deciding to keep her mouth shut. Diane was learning how to fight for only a little over a day, of course she wouldn't be able to hit her.

"Alex was trained to fight against us, so he's a lot better than me but I will defeat him one day. With enough training, he wont be a match against me," Amy declared with gusto, ignoring the odd look Diane was giving her. "Right now he's sitting on his ass doing nothing while I am only getting better, so its only a matter of time!"

"Okay. Who's Alex?" Diane asked, interrupting Amy.

"Oh, its Alpha One. That's his name," Amy explained, getting a nod of understanding from Diane. "Well, I must admit that I'm curious. I wonder what he said on the interview...hopefully he didn't mention me..." she muttered.

Diane continued looking at her friend as she continued ranting about all the ways she would defeat and punish Alpha One, which only made her wonder what kind of a relationship they had and how they met.

* * *

><p>Alice took a sip out of her glass of warm milk, grabbed the remote and crashed on the vacant couch. After a moment the dark room was illuminated by the TV.<p>

It was like a usual routine for her. Pick a house, preferably empty, break in and use all the conveniences until morning. She fixed the towel around her head and the towel around her torso before taking another sip from her drink. The opportunity to have a good, warm shower and enjoy some real food was also very appealing and Alice more than once found herself breaking into apartments and houses on a daily basis whenever she was too far from their sanctuary.

She surfed through the channels, looking for something interesting to pass her time with, until she stopped on a show that caught her attention. The simple mention of Alpha One was enough to freeze her, stopping herself from changing the channel.

She saw a young black-haired man speaking about what he went through in the institute, answering the interviewers questions and giving his opinion on certain matters. She sat absolutely frozen, barely even blinking as she watched the interview, swallowing every word that came out of the young man's mouth. She watched how he spoke, how he acted and gradually found herself angered by how easily he spoke about what they went through, as if it was something so...casual. She grit her teeth as she continued listening to him speaking like that, so lightheartedly. Soon enough, much too soon for her likings, the interview was over and she found herself watching some uninteresting show about something which she never even cared about.

She stood up and threw the remote down to the couch before she stormed into one of the bedrooms and started rummaging through the closet until she found some clothes that fit her size. Her old clothes were in a bad shape and were earning her too many stares. Finally settling for a pair of blue jeans and a white blouse she threw away the towels, dried her hair and got dressed.

A few minutes later she left the apartment wearing her new clothes and a new blue stocking cap which she quickly donned to hide her horns. She needed to get back to the sanctuary. She finally found a way to contact Alpha One and knew for a fact that he was in town, which was a good things for her plans.

Soon enough she will meet with him face to face and then he will pay.

* * *

><p>"And stay out!" was the thing he heard before his head hit the ground. Alex groaned as he rolled onto his back and watched Kitty glaring at him with murder in her eyes. "'Can't blame her for being unable to resist my nonresistant self'? You should be thankful that I'm not castrating you now!" she shouted at him and he winced at the volume.<p>

Alex realized that he was absolutely right. As soon as Kitty heard the interview she went berserk. At least she had the decency to wait until they stopped airing it before she threw him out of the house. He dejectedly watched as she walked back to the house and locked the doors, leaving him the chilly garden. A cold gust of wind blew by, sending shivers down his spine.

"Totally worth it," he said with conviction and a small grin.

* * *

><p><strong>Yeah, totally worth it, eh?<strong>

**So yeah. That's it basically. Not a very long chapter, admittedly but I think its enough for now. Sorry for not updating for so long. Anyway, thanks for reading the story!**

**Special thanks go to my beta reader who fixed all the previous chapters so far! Thanks again!**

**Thank you all for reading my story and enjoying it! I gladly accept constructive criticism, any ideas, suggestions or just plain opinions! Heck, you can tell me my story sucks, but at least provide a reason :P Leave all of the above in a review! I'll be sure to read it and take it into account. The story will only get better that way. Thanks again!**

**Another special thanks to all of those who support the story! You make me happy each time you give me your opinion and tell me how you like my story ^^ Thanks!**

**Until next time, Delvaro out.**


End file.
